So in checking on the ancestry of Joe (J. A.) Sharp, who I spoke about a few days ago, I was trying to see how he connected to my cousin Rebecca Cannon Sharp,(1812-1901) who lived a very long time. There were occasionally others on my tree with longevity, but not anything extreme. Rebecca's husband also had a long life, James Madison Sharp (1816-1905). More about him later.
But try as far back as the American Revolution, and none of the Sharps in Rebecca's husband's family seemed to have a line to connect to Joe's line. He said as much at one time.
So I'll be happy to know that his great grandmother times a few greats (Dialtha P. Rogers Mullendore (1810-1884) was the Rogers sister of my Rogers great grandfather times a few greats (Micajah Rogers 1795-1883). I'm happy to be related to a historian who contributed so much to the Sevier County genealogical records (imagine 18 reels of microfilm!)
I also found his research was quoted when I was looking at the earlier Sharp families. I think I'd like to share a bit of what I found...
Under the ancestor's name: John Sharp, (1730-1816) there's an extensive article titled,
Capt. James M. Sharp’s 1894 Reminiscences, written for his son Dr. Samuel Pride Sharp
I'm not including that here, but Joe Sharp's notes about it. The article is long and convoluted, but interesting in a folk history way, as well as includes the lists of children and wives that people had. Why is it under John Sharp rather than Capt. James M. Sharp's site? I don't know.
But John Sharp listed was the grandfather of our Rebecca Cannon Sharp's husband, Captain James Madison Sharp (1816-1905), none other than the author of the first article. John Sharp is on my family tree, and is listed as the paternal grandfather of a husband of a 4th great aunt. Yep, I'm stretching the relationships. But part of the fun is learning how these strong people lived and endured their lives.
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J. A. SHARP’S NOTES, ca. 1949, ON THE SHARP FAMILY
Captain
James M. Sharp, a grandson of John Sharp Sr., wrote in his
recollections about 1894 information about his grandparents that he
obtained from his father, John Sharp Jr., who settled in Sevier County
and 1806 and died there in 1844. Some family birth, death, and marriage
dates are recorded in the Thomas Sharp Bible, in 1949 in the possession
of Reuben Sharp of Loudon, TN.
In
1925, Mrs. H. C. Jones of New Market, Alabama, corresponded with Mrs.
Sterling Fort of Clarksville, TN, and Mrs. Fort gave Mrs. Jones
information about the Sharp family. Mrs. Fort said that Robert Sharp and
Mary Porter were born in Augusta County, Virginia, were married there,
came to Tennessee between 1808 and 1812, and settled in Williamson
County. She told Mrs. Jones that William H. Sharp of Nashville said that
his grandfather, Robert Sharp, left somewhere in Georgia on May 4, 1794
and settled in Williamson County. He had gotten the information from an
old almanac used as a diary, he supposed, by a Dr. James Boyd Sharp.
Robert Sharp was still living in 1828 and attended the personal property
sale of his brother Joseph’s estate in Augusta County, VA. It seems
that he inherited considerable property from Joseph.
The
John Sharp Jr. Bible (published by Matthew Carey in 1802) also has
family dates recorded in it. It was purchased by John Sharp Jr. in 1803
and is now [1949] in the possession of Miss Mary Sharp, his
great-granddaughter, of Sevierville, TN.
The
Clark Bible records some family dates and is in the possession of John
Clark of Maryville, TN. Some dates are on markers in Clark Grove
Cemetery near Maryville, TN. Letitia’s husband, Robert Sharp, presented
quite a problem: nothing is known about his ancestry. In 1927, the late
Will Parham, Blount County genealogist, interviewed the late Robert
Sharp of Rockford, TN, and heard the old family tradition that Robert
Sharp was “killed by Indians on Pistol Creek, near Maryville and is
buried on the Will Brakebill Farm, 7 miles northeast of here.” Another
version of the same story was that the was killed in 1792 “by an Indian
striking him on the head with a tomahawk as he was crossing Pistol Creek
with a hay fork on his shoulder, on his way to gather up hay.” That
Robert Sharp was actually killed by Indians is proven by a contemporary
account in the Knoxville Gazette of October t, 1792:
On the 3rd
instant Black’s Block House, on the head of Crooked Creek (a branch of
Little River) at which there was a serjeant’s command of Captain
Crawford’s company, was attacked, by surprise about an hour and a half
in the night, by a party of Indians commanded by a Cherokee of Will’s
Town, called the Tail, a brother of the Bench and Talohtkfke, consisting
of three other Cherokees and five Creek.
James
Paul was killed in the house, and George Morse and Robert Sharp at a
fire on the outside, and John Shankland wounded, three horses were
killed and seven taken off.
In
August 1793 the widow, Letitia, settled his estate in the Knox County
Court of Pleas and Common Sessions. Letitia Sharp married John Clark, a
Revolutionary War veteran, in 1801, and her daughter Nancy married
John’s son (by a previous marriage) James. Robert Sharp, before settling
in Blount County, TN, owned land in Rockbridge County, VA, and may have
lived there with his family.
The
Union, Campbell, Claiborne County Sharps are not ours. There, Sharps
were German in origin. “Scharp” was the German spelling. Our Sharps were
Scotch-Irish, probably English in origin, but migrated with Scotch to
North Ireland, from whence they came to Pennsylvania in the early 1790s.
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included on same site is this article as well...though I am not as particularly interested in the subject.
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Joe A. Sharp’s Article on Flayl Nichols in the East Tennessee Historical Society’s Echoes for January 1957
Flayl
Nichols, Revolutionary soldier, settled in Sevier County, TN, about
1790. He married Nancy Hatcher in Bedford County, VA, on January 7,
1780. They sold their Bedford County lands in 1787 and 1788, and records
of Franklin County, VA, show Flayl serving as juror and making
depositions there during these same years. No details of his
Revolutionary service are known, but his misspelled name, “Flail
Nicholes,” was recorded on the roll of Captain Adam Clement’s Bedford
County militia company. Also, it was said that he served in the regiment
of Colonel William Campbell at King’s Mountain, and Captain Clement’s
company assisted General Nathaniel Greene in North Carolina in 1781.
Flayl’s
father was John Nichols, whose will was probated in Bedford County in
1803. The only bequest to Flayl was the “big family Bible,” but since he
was the first heir named, it is believed that he was the oldest child
and may have received his share before his father’s death. It is not
known what happened to this old Nichols Bible. Flayl’s brothers and
sisters, as named in their father’s will, were John Archibald, Elisha,
Jesse, Mary Cundiff, Katherine Pollard, and Jane Hancock. Bequests were
also made to “my beloved wife Martha Nichols,” but her maiden name was
not revealed—unless she was a second wife, she was the mother of Flayl
and the other children named above.
Bedford
County records show the following marriages of the above Nichols
children: Archibald was married twice—(1) Judith Hatcher, daughter of
Richard Hatcher, and (2) Sarah Wollington (1799); Elish Nichols married
Rosey Slinker (1782); Jane Nichols married Edward Hancock (1783); Jesse
Nichols married Sally Fields (1800). It is believed that Katherine
Nichols’s husband was John Pollard, but the given njame of Mary Nichols
Cundiff’s husband is unknown. Neither is anything definitely known of
Flayl’s brother John, except the bequest of a “small shot gun . . . unto
my grandson John Nichols, son of my son John Nichols.” This grandson is
believed to have been John J. Nichols, who, with his wife, Margaret
(Scantlen) Nichols, migrated from Bedford County to Sevier County and
settled near Sevierville about 1819. Descendants of Flayl always claimed
kinship with descendants of John J. Nichols.
There is good proof that John Nichols, father of Flayl, was also a soldier of the Revolution.
Flayl’s
Sevier County home was located on the West Fork of Little Pigeon River,
four miles south of Sevierville, near the mouth of Walden’s Creek,
where Colonel Samuel Wear established Wear’s Fort not long after 1783.
Tradition has it that Flayl and family first resided in this fort after
their arrival from Virginia during the early 1790s, when the Cherokee
Indians were making their last attacks on the Tennessee frontier. It is
likely that Flayl participated in Colonel Wear’s Tallassee expedition
against the Cherokee in 1793.
In
1808 Flayl received a Tennessee grant for his occupant claim of 331
acres, which included two horseshoe bends of Little Pigeon and the
surrounding hills; the river today makes the same bends as in 1807, when
the Nichols grant was surveyed, as shown by the surveyor’s plat in the
Tennessee Archives. His lands joined the lands owned by Stephen Winton,
George Green, John Mahan, and Alexander Montgomery, also original grant
holders and early settlers in the same neighborhood. His home was on the
bank of the river a few hundred yards north of Shiloh Cemetery, and he
operated a mill nearby.
Details
in the lives of humble men are hard to find; so it was with Flayl
Nichols, and doubly so in Sevier County, where the early county records
were lost in the courthouse fire of 1856. Flayl, however, left a few
footprints, although obscure and scattered. In 1801 we find him serving
as captain of a Sevier County militia company; later, in 1805, the
Tennessee legislature made him a commissioner for the town of
Sevierville, although he did not live in the town.
Perhaps
Flayl’s greatest claim to fame was his service as state senator in the
Tennessee legislature, 1803 to 1804; he represented Sevier and Blount
counties. In the impeachment trial of Judge David Campbell, he joined
the minority of James White, Senate Speaker and Knoxville’s founder, and
Joseph McMinn, future Tennessee governor, and voted for Judge
Campbell’s conviction. He introduced bills to “establish fairs in Sevier
County,” and to empower the Sevier County Court to levy a tax to repair
the “court house, prison and stocks.” He also voted with the majority
that defeated a bill to “prohibit the further importation of slaves into
Tennessee.” And on November 7, 1803, Flayl joined the overwhelming
majority of the State Senate that voted to clear John Sevier of
fraudulently obtaining North Carolina land warrants for 105,000 acres of
Tennessee lands. Finally, on August 1, 1805, he voted against the bill
allowing North Carolina to “perfect titles” to lands in Tennessee, and
after the passage this bell, he entered his strong protest in the Senate
Journal.
Flayl
and Nancy had nine children, as follows: Sarah (born 1780), Martha,
born 1783), Rhoda (Born 1785), John (born 1787), Jesse (born 1788),
Simon (born 1795), William (born 1797), Robert (born 1800), and Edward
(born ?). Only one of these remained in Sevier County—this was John, who
married Esther V. Black of Blount County, Tennessee, in 1814. It is
believed that she was a daughter of Joseph Black, one of the founders of
Blount County and Maryville. The daughter Martha married Irish-born
Robert Lawson, early Sevierville shoemaker and saddler, and they
migrated to Talladega County, Alabama, soon after the War of 1812, and
many of their descendants still live in the latter place today. Sarah
married John Matson, War of 1812 soldier; after his death she and her
children also settled in Talladega County. The son William married
Martha Cannon, and about 1835 they migrated to Randolph County,
Missouri—he died there in 1884. Jesse, a soldier in the War of 1812,
married Tobitha Coulter, or Cotter, and they migrated to Marshall
County, Alabama, where Jesse died in 1841—his widow still lived there in
1872. Nothing is known about the daughter Rhoda, and no trace has bene
found of the other sons, but family tradition states that they, like
William, also settled in Missouri.
Flayl
Nichold died at his home on the West Fork of Little Pigeon on August
17, 1823. The family Bible recorded his death as follows: “Flayl Nichols
departed this life on Little Pigeon River Sevier County Tennessee State
with gravel Aug 17, 1823.” His grave in Shiloh Cemetery is marked with
the original hand-shaped sandstone, with the inscription “F.N. Dc. 1823”
and the carving of the old-fashioned canoe-shaped coffin below this
inscription. In recent years a flat granite headstone showing his
Revolutionary War service was furnished by the War Memorial Division of
the United States Army, and it was erected in front of the old stone.
The widow Nancy survived for several years—she died in 1840. No original
marker remains at her grave, but the writer, with the help of three
Alabama descendants, placed a granite marker for Nancy by the side of
Flayl’s grave.
----------------
and the third article included for the Nichols family was also included, so I've copied it to have it available if ever I get interested in it...
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More on the Nichols Family by Joseph A. Sharp, written about 1940
There
is a family tradition that Flail Nichols served in the Revolutionary
War, but neither the Department of the Army not the Veterans
Administration has any record of such service [they must have found some
records since the Army erected a Revolutionary War service grave marker
sometime before 1957]. On the original marker, the date of his death is
plant, but the date of his birth is not very plain; however, it appears
to be 1747.
It
is not known definitely that Edward (Ned), William, Jesse, and Robert
H. were sons of Flail Nichols, but it appears likely that they were. Old
land survey books in the Register’s Office of Sevier County contain
land entries made by each of these men. William Nichols entered 52 acres
on the west fort of the Little Pigeon River in 1824. Edward Nichols
entered 100 acres in the same neighborhood in 1826, and in 1836 he
entered 150 acres on Gist’s Creek in Sevier County. In 1938, Uncle Ash
Nichols, at the age of 85 years, remembered hearing of his father’s,
Joshua Nichols, going to mill in the present Shiloh community to his
uncle Ned Nichols and also of visiting another uncle who lived nearby.
The above land entries by Edward and William Nichols seem to have been
located in the Shiloh community, and it is believed these were the two
uncles referred to by Joshua Nichols, who was a grandson of Flail
Nichols. In 1826, Jesse Nichols entered 50 acres on the west fork of the
Little Pigeon River; he also entered 50 acres on Gist’s Creek in 1824.
Robert H. Nichols also entered 50 acres on the west fork of the Little
Pigeon River in 1828. Of course, the latter two men may not have been
the sons of Flail Nichols, but in view of the fact that they were
entering land in the same vicinity, it is reasonable to speculate that
they were sons or grandsons of his. There was also a Sallie Nichols who
entered 50 acres on Knob Creek in 1834, and a Charles Nichols in
mentioned in one of the survey books mentioned above.
John
and Esther Nichols are buried in the same grave in Shiloh Cemetery
since there were only two days’ difference in their deaths (he died on
Mar. 16, 1865, twelve days after his 76th birthday, and she
died on Mar. 18). John and family lived on Walden’s Creek, about four
miles above its mouth. Land entries he made, as recorded in an old land
survey book were for 25 acres on Walden’s Creek in 1828, for 100 acres
on Walden’s Creek in 1831, and for another 100 acres there in 1851. He
also owned land on Knob Creek in Sevier County. In 1938, a grandson of
John Nichols, Ashley W. Nichols (Uncle Ash), of Sevier County,
remembered visiting his grandfather on Walden’s Creek. His father sent
him to plow for his grandfather, and he went home without telling his
grandfather. John Nichols was a member of the Methodist church at
Shiloh, and, as a very active member, it was his duty to “line out the
hymns.” He and his wife are buried very near the location of the old
church.
