Historical Sketches of Kentucky by Lewis Collins, Maysville, KY. and J. A.
& U. P. James, Cincinnati, 1847. Reprinted 1968. Franklin County.

Col. SOLOMON P. SHARP. - In a work designed to perpetuate a knowledge of
the remarkable events that have transpired in Kentucky, and the memory of
distinguished men who have given renown to the State, the name of Colonel
Solomon P. Sharp deserves a conspicuous place.  It was the fortune of this
able man to illustrate, by his own career, the noble tendency of our
republican institutions, and to teach to his youthful countrymen the
important lesson that each may, and must be, the architect of his own
fortunes, and there is no station to which the humblest may now aspire. 
He was born of a parentage that brought him no aid but that which an
unsullied name can give.  His father had been a soldier of the Revolution,
and one of the gallant but obscure borderers who gained the memorable
victory at King's mountain.  The war being over, he moved from Washington
county, in Virginia, first to the neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee,
and in a short time afterwards to the vicinity of Russellville, Kentucky. 
It was at the latter place that Colonel Sharp grew up to manhood, having
been but a very small child at the period of his father's removal to the
Green river country.  At an early day, that region was almost a desert,
and but few advantages were possessed by the young for mental improvement.
The simplest rudiments of education were all that even the most favored
could expect, and even these were only to be obtained by alternate
interchange between the labors of the farm and the employments of the
school room.  Still, such was the nursery of many of the most
distinguished men of Kentucky; and in that school they  acquired a vigor
of constitution and independence in thought, action and speech, that gave
them throughout life, a force of character which enabled them to leave
their impress on the times in which they lived.
     Col. Sharp, at an early age of nineteen, had, in the midst of
innumerable and, to any but a brave spirit, insurmountable difficulties,
gained admittance to the bar.  He entered the profession unknown, without
the influence of friends or fortune, his sole dependence being on his own
energies.  But, in a short time, he stood forth before all observers as a
youth of uncommon promise, and, in his earliest professional efforts, he
displayed powers of reasoning, of research and of eloquence that drew upon
him the admiration and esteem of the whole community.  As a reasoner, his
powers were remarkable, clear, discriminating and logical; in debate, he
had few equals and no superiors.  His style of speech was of the
conversational order - plain and concise - he was always understood; and
those who heard him, felt that they were taking part in unravelling the
propositions, which he sought to make manifest.  He seldom turned aside
from his subject, unless to relieve the mind from the tenseness of the
argument; and when this was necessary, he never lacked a playful sally or
happy illustration to suit his purpose.  Without any thing like
redundancy, he never hesitated for a word, and was strictly fluent from
the force of his own thought, and he never became excited that he had not
a convinced and sympathising auditory.
     At the earliest period permissible by the constitution, he was
elected a member of the Kentucky legislature, and on the political theatre
displayed talents of such rare order that, at twenty-four years of age, he
might have been considered one of the first public men in Kentucky.  He
was again and again honored by a seat in the legislature, until, by the
general voice of the district in which he lived, he was transferred to the
Congress of the United States, and for two successive terms, embracing the
most interesting period of the administration of Mr. Madison, he occupied
the very front rank among the most eminent politicians of that day.  He
was the room mate and intimate friend of the Hon. John C. Calhoun, of
South Carolina; and stood side by side with him, in the support of the
administration of Mr. Madison.  The high estimation in which he was held
by that distinguished statesman, is attested by his having been heard to
declare, more than once,  that "he was the ablest man of his age that had
ever crossed the mountains."
     Enticing as were these early political honors to a youth of honorable
ambition, and holding out, as they did, the prospect of still further
advancement, Col. Sharp relinquished them all with cheerfulness, in order
that he might devote himself with more assiduity to the labors of his
profession.  Having married the daughter of Colonel John M. Scott, of
Frankfort, and his reputation as a lawyer being commensurate with the
State, he determined to remove to the seat of government, where the
supreme court of the State, and the federal court of the district of
Kentucky held their sessions.  Before these two distinguished tribunals -
distinguished for the great learning of the presiding justices, and the
unsurpassed ability of the lawyers who practiced before them, Colonel
Sharp was the acknowledged equal of the most eminent, and acquired a
practice as extensive and lucrative as any practitioner at the bar, and
the docket of the court of appeals of that day, shows his name to almost
every litigated case, from the first day of his location in Frankfort.
     He was selected by Governer Adair as peculiarly qualified for the
important office of attorney general, and he discharged its duties to the
perfect satisfaction of the country.  This was the highest honor of the
legal profession that a practitioner could enjoy, and there was but one
step more for legal ambition, and that was a seat upon the bench.  He did
not attain the age when lawyers, in full practice, are willing to retire
and leave the field of active and profitable labor to younger competitors;
but there is no question, judging of the future from the past, that he
would have been called to occupy a distinguished place in the highest
courts of judicature, at a little later period.
     It was in the midst of a career like this, fruitful of honors, of
public usefulness and domestic happiness, that he fell by the hand of an
assasin, on the night of the - November, 1825, [sic] in the thirty-eighth
year of his age.  The peculiar atrocity of the deed created a thrill of
horror throughout the land, for it ws attended with circumstances of most
fiend-like barbarity.  The legislature, of which Colonel Sharp was at that
time a member, being in session, offered a reward of three thousand
dollars for the detection and apprehension of the murderer, and passed
resolutions testifying the public condolence and sympathy with the
afflicted family, and the great loss the State had sustained in his
untimely death.

Sharp Madison Calhoun Scott Adair
=
Washington-VA Nashville-Davidson-TN Russellville-Logan-KY SC

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