Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky, by H. Levin, editor, 1897. Published
by Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago.  Reprinted by Southern Historical
Press.  p. 109.  Franklin County.

COLONEL SOLOMON P. SHARP, attorney general of Kentucky and member of
congress and of the Kentucky legislature, was born in Abingdon, Washington
county, Virginia, in 1787, and died at Frankfort, Kentucky, on the 7th of
November, 1825, meeting his death at the hand of an assassin and as the
result of a political conspiracy.
     "It is the sacred duty of every generation to preserve a faithful
memorial of the character and conduct of its distinguished men. The
maxims and motives and destinies of prominent men, as exemplified from age
to age in the moral drama of our race, constitute the elements of historic
philosophy and impart to the annals of mankind their only practical
utility."
     At a distance of time now nearly three-quarters of a century since
the cowardly arm of the assassin did its work, a calm and unprejudiced view
may be had and an impartial and true biography written of a most remarkable
man,--one of the most gifted and noblest of Kentucky's statesmen.  Traduced
while living, the peculiar circumstances of his taking off have come down
through the annals of time embellished with imaginary details and made the
warp of a romance and of a drama.  No more instructive or interesting life,
no nobler or more elevating character, no brighter intellect and no more
unselfish devotion to duty to family and to friends, can be found in the
history of Kentucky's Lawyers and Lawmakers than is exemplified in the
rehearsal of the life of Solomon P. Sharp.  Without the influence of
wealth he made his way from the obscurity of the farm to high and honored
office.  His indomitable will, his native intellect, his adherence to the
right, his wonderful power and mastery of every subject with which he was
connected, compressed into his brief life of thirty-eight years more of
activity and of accomplished work than ordinarily is compassed by the
"three-score and ten" allotment of man.
     His father, Thomas Sharp of Washington county, Virginia entered the
service of the united colonies and was commissioned captain.  With two
brothers he participated in the decisive battle of King's mountain,
recognized now by students of history as the turning point in the war
for independence, and in that engagement was severely wounded.  These
brothers were descended from good English stock, their father being a
grandson of John Sharp, lord archbishop of the diocese of York, England.
In the famous cathedral at that place there stands today a statue of that
illustrious divine, the resemblance to the descendants of the American
branch being easily traced. The wife of Captain Thomas Sharp was Jean
Maxwell, a native of Scotland.  They came to Kentucky at a very early
day, enduring all the hardships of the pioneer, settling near
Russellville in what is now Logan county, about 1798.  The father died,
leaving a family of eight children, and this necessitated young Solomon
P. Sharp to work early and late in order to gain a livelihood and assist
in the support of the family.  It is a matter of history that he
acquired a masterful knowledge of Latin and Greek while following the
plow and became proficient in the branches usually taught today in high
schools and colleges, having no assistance in this task, his determination
to acquire a liberal education being accomplished by the indomitable will
power which enabled him later to surmount all obstacles.
     When very young, Mr. Sharp had fixed his mind on the law as the
profession he should follow and addressed his every effort to achieve
this end; and he did this with such success that in 1809 he was licensed
to practice and admitted to the bar at Russellville.  His ability and
sterling qualities of mind and heart were even then of so marked a
character that he was elected to represent Warren county in the state
legislature in 1809 and again in 1810 and 1811.  At the last session he
had as a compeer on the floor of the house, Ben Hardin, then
twenty-seven years of age, and for the first time a member of a
legislative body.  At this session of the general assembly Ben Hardin,
with the aid of Colonel Sharp, secured the passage of a bill the object
and effect of which was to discourage dueling and inaugurate a course of
legislation that has contributed to rid the country of this great evil. In
1849, during the constitutional convention of that year, Mr. Hardin
advocated the incorporation of a similar provision in the constitution
then being framed, and said: "The act of the assembly of 1811 on dueling
was drawn up by myself and carried through the house of representatives by
the aid of a gentleman younger than myself, Solomon P. Sharp, one of the
ablest and most eloquent men Kentucky ever knew."  Thus, after a lapse of
thirty-eight years, we find this statesman giving testimony unasked to
the character of his deceased contemporary and friend.
     In 1812 Solomon P. Sharp, with all the enthusiasm of youth and with
the martial spirit of his forefathers of Revolutionary fame, organized
a company for service in the pending war and was made captain thereof.  He
had a great fondness for military life, its spirit, its activity and its
discipline strongly appealing to his nature.  Later he was made a colonel
of militia and earned his title by giving of his time and talent to
perfect the volunteer organization of his state with which he was
associated.  Colonel Young Ewing, writing from Christian county under
the date of January, 1827, says of Colonel Sharp: "I served with him in
the army during the late war (of 1812), in which he volunteered his
services as a private soldier, and was, in the organization of the army,
preferred to the command of a battalion in the regiment I had the honor
to command; and in no single instance had I reason to complain, for I
always found him prompt, decisive and manly in executing all orders coming
from the commanding general or myself."
     Colonel Sharp's faithful service in the lower house of the state
legislature led to his being called to broader fields of usefulness, his
district sending him to congress in 1813 and re-electing him in 1815.  In
the four years in which he was one of Kentucky's representatives in the
council chambers of the nation, from 1813 to 1817, he was the associate
of Henry Clay, James Clark, Ben Hardin, R. M. Johnson and Stephen Ormsby,
from his own state, while John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was his
intimate friend and room-mate in Washington.  His career in the capital
city was marked by earnestness and devotion to the interest of his people,
and Calhoun pronounced him "the greatest mind that has come to congress
up to his time from beyond the mountains."
     Retiring from congressional life, Colonel Sharp, with renewed energy,
resumed the practice of law, but was again sent to the state legislature
in 1817 and 1818.  His reputation for ability and integrity was as wide
as the state, and the demands on his time as a member of the legal
profession, in cases of large import pending in the United States courts
and in the court of appeals at Frankfort, impelled him to take up his
residence in that city in 1820.  The following year he was appointed by
Governor John Adair to the position of attorney-general of Kentucky and
served under the administration, when he was re-appointed by Governor
Adair on the 1st of June, 1821, and soliciting his acceptance of the
office of attorney-general, was concluded in the following words: "I need
not say to you that the office has fallen into disrepute in public
estimation, and the salary been improperly reduced, more from an eye to
the former occupant than to the office.  It is my wish so to fill it at
present that it may be again renovated and take its due stand in the
government."  The superior ability of Colonel Sharp not only raised the
office to its old dignity, but even advanced it to a still higher standard.
     In the spring of 1825 Colonel Sharp was one of the state
commissioners appointed to do honor to that patriot and statesman, the
Marquis de LaFayette, then on a visit to America, and as such, in the
absence of the gentleman delegated to deliver the address at Louisville,
was called upon to fill his place and made extemporaneously a most eloquent
and touching address, extending to the French hero the hospitality of
the state and welcoming him in the name of all its citizens.  His ready
wit, command of language and elegant presence enabled him thus readily to
adapt himself to any and all circumstances and to acquit himself in a
most creditable manner, reflecting honor on the state he represented.
     In 1825 Colonel Sharp was elected representative from Franklin county
to the general assembly, as choice of his party,--the "Relief" or the
"New Court party,"--his opponent being the Honorable John J. Crittenden,
who had been United States senator from Kentucky and was recognized as
one of the most able and honorable citizens of the state.  His majority,
after a very hotly contested canvass, was sixty-nine, the vote case being
one of the fullest ever polled in the county.  Colonel Sharp's popularity
among the masses, his acknowledge ability, his eloquent addresses and his
sterling worth and adherence to the rights of the people against oppression,
had made him a powerful force in the contest of Relief and Anti-Relief,
which for five years (1820-1825) had been a live issue before the people
of the state.  Possibly no state in the Union has been so near to
internecine war as was Kentucky in those days of depression and panic.
     Mr. Sharp was regarded as one of the most active and powerful of the
advocates of the Relief party and its candidate for speaker of the house,
for which high office he had received the caucus nomination on the night
of his death.  In the prime of life, in possession of every faculty, the
center of a charming home circle, loved and respected by his fellow
citizens, entrusted by them with the care of their interest in the
important session just begun, named by his party as their standard-bearer
and chief, while in the enjoyment of a large and lucrative practice and
possessed by a handsome competence accumulated by his industry, and in
the midst of political triumphs and domestic happiness, he was cut down
in the dead hour of midnight!  A man with murder in his heart called him
from his bed to the door, asking shelter for the night and using the
name of an intimate friend to lure him and to shield his own identity.
While extending one hand to his victim in simulating friendly greeting,
with the other he thrust the deadly knife into Colonel Sharp's body and
fled away into the darkness of the night, leaving him expiring on the
threshold of his hospitable home!  No event in the history of Kentucky
had been more tragic, none had so stirred the state, nor indeed the nation,
for Solomon P. Sharp was no ordinary man, and his service in congress had
given him a national reputation.
     With him died the Relief party.  The assembled legislature met with
this great cloud upon them and gave expression to their respect and love
for the deceased by passing resolutions in his honor and in memory of his
public services and private virtues, and also authorizing a reward of
three thousand dollars to be paid for the detection of his murderer. The
assassin, who had fled from Frankfort, the scene of his crime, was
apprehended, tried and hanged; the majesty of the law was vindicated;
but the noble man, removed from a field of usefulness, could not be
restored; a loving wife, made a widow, a family of little children, made
fatherless, were not to be consoled.  The hand that in the darkness of
night struck the treacherous blow was no more worthy of confidence than
the lying tongue of the same body; still the flimsy story told by the
murderer made to do duty as exemplifying the cause of the assassination or
in order to gain sympathy for himself and palliate his heinous act, has
been handed down to posterity, while the facts which all the circumstances
arrest as true and which point to the murders as the result of a conspiracy
to attain political ends, have been lost sight of.  That Solomon P. Sharp
was the victim of such a conspiracy cannot be doubted by those who will
investigate and weigh the evidence adduced in his "Vindication" and at the
trial of the assassin, and in the civil suits subsequently brought by
certain parties against his widow for the alleged libel.  The following
letter written to Mrs. Sharp by some of the most distinguished men of the
time, however, is a fitting commentary on his life and character and shows
how he was regarded by those who knew him best:
     "The anxious and tender solicitude with which you cherish the
memory of your deceased and ever-to-be-lamented husband, and the zeal
with which you seem determined to vindicate his memory from detraction
are strongly portrayed in your letters, to which this is intended as an
answer.  They are sentiments which have their sanction in the finest
impulses of the human heart, excite our sympathy and command our respect.
The policy of your request--`that his surviving friends should make out
for publication a statement of their opinion of his public and private
character'--we cannot but think somewhat equivocal; for there is a
justice in public sentiment which forbids the spirit of detraction to
invade or profane the sanctity of the tomb, and inflicts infamy upon all
who shall dare to violate its sacred injunction.
     "Upon this just and humane sentiment of mankind we think the friends
and relatives of Colonel Sharp might safely rely.  We know, however, and
appreciate your feelings.  Your bereavement was one of no ordinary
character.  The sorrows inflicted upon you by the premature and tragical
death of Colonel Sharp should not have been aggravated by calumnious
imputations upon his memory.  Detraction, however malignant, ought to
have forborne `to break the bruised reed.'  We cannot therefore advise you
to decline the vindication of his memory which you contemplate; nor can
we, without doing injustice to our own feelings, and inflicting agony upon
your sensibilities, decline to make out the expression which you solicit of
our opinion of Colonel Sharp's character.
     "We have known Colonel Sharp (most of us) intimately during the
last twenty years of his life.  As a lawyer he had few equals and no
superior in the state.  As a statesman he was highly distinguished.  His
patriotism was acknowledged by all.  His talents were denied by none.
For the duties of his profession he had peculiar aptitude.  The powers
of his very vigorous mind were most happily balanced.  He consequently
possessed an elevated, a serene and almost imperturbable equanimity.  He
never, by his manner of discussing a case, inflicted pain upon the
adverse party, his witness or counsel.  Although capable of his eloquence
he rarely indulged in declamation.  He seemed to rely exclusively upon
his investigating and augmentative powers,--powers which he possessed in
a very eminent degree.
     "But Colonel Sharp was not merely the distinguished statesman, the
profound lawyer, the able advocate; he was remarkable for the extent and
accuracy of his various information.  His ardor for information was almost
quenchless and his constitution favored his aspirations.  He was finely
elastic and capable of great intensity of application without injury to
his habitual good health.  He was unassuming in his deportment,
unpretending in conversation, placid in his disposition and mild and
conciliatory in his manners.  He was the artificer of his own fortunes.
He had acquired wealth and attained distinction.  He occupied a large space
in the public mind and was in a state of rapid expansion at the time of his
death.  In the walks of private life Colonel Sharp was as amiable as he
was distinguished in the theater of public life.  We consider Colonel
Sharp a great and good man.  We deplored his death, not merely as a
private but as a public calamity, and we have no doubt that when the
political fervors of the day shall have subsided he will be affectionately
and proudly remembered by the people of Kentucky as one of its most
distinguished citizens.  You will perceive that we have not attempted a
declination of the public services and private virtues of your deceased
husband; the limits of a letter forbid it: for that purpose a volume would
be required.  Accept assurances of our sincere sympathy with a profound
respect for your personally.
                                        "John Rowan,
                                        "John Adair,
                                        "R. M. Johnson,
                                        "W. T. Barry."
     Of the signers of this letter, two--John Rowan and William T.
Barry--occupied the exalted position of United States senators at
Washington; Richard M. Johnson was vice president of the United States;
and John Adair was governor of Kentucky.  Probably no equally celebrated
quartet ever subscribed to a letter of such character.
     In 1818 Eliza T. Scott became the wife of Solomon P. Sharp.  She
was the daughter of Dr. John M. Scott, of Frankfort, Kentucky, who had
been a surgeon in "mad" Anthony Wayne's army in the same regiment with
Captain W. H. Harrison, and was with General Harrison in his campaigns in
the war of 1812 as regimental surgeon.  So close and devoted was the
friendship of these two men that each named his first son for the other
and entered into a compact that the survivor, in case of the death of
either, was to have by adoption the child named for him to rear in his
own family. Dr. Scott died first and his son William Harrison Scott was
adopted and educated by General Harrison and lived with him until the
latter's death.  Dr. Scott's namesake, John Scott Harrison, was the
father of ex-President Benjamin Harrison, and the latter's first wife was
a kinswoman of Dr. Scott.  When William H. Harrison was elected president,
his wife being in too delicate health to preside in the White House,
Colonel Sharp's widow, the daughter of his old companion in arms, was
invited to preside there, but declined, preferring the quiet life of her
home and the care of her family, consisting of two sons and a daughter.
Of these John M. Sharp, the elder son, was colonel on the staff of
General Simon B. Buckner in the Confederate States Army, and was lost in
a ship-wreck while returning from Europe, where he had been sent on a
governmental mission for the Confederacy.  Solomon L. Sharp, the second
son, became a prominent and influential citizen of Bardstown, where he
died in 1878; and Jane M. became the wife of William D. Reed, a lawyer
of note, who is represented elsewhere in this volume.  Mrs. Reed is still
living, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Sharp Maxwell Clay Clark Ormsby Calhoun Johnson LaFayette Hardin
Ewing Crittenden Rowan Scott Reed
=
Louisville-Jefferson-KY Logan-KY Christian-KY Nelson-KY Washington-VA
Scotland England

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/franklin/sharp.sp2.txt