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Occupation: homemaker
Religion: Presbyterian
From The Sharps of The Carolinas And Georgia by Neill W. Macaulay, Jr.
John and Catherine White Sharp built their home on land obtained from her father. In his will Alexander White gave to his daughter Catherine Sharp, “that receipt that John Sharp gave for the land I let him have”. The house stood about two miles from Bethel Presbyterian Church towards Walhalla and about one mile from Picket Post. John became the leader in his community where his farm was a model of productivity. He was a skilled mechanic and would fashion his plows and other farm implements after his own ideas and in his own equipped shop. His ingenuity in designing improved farming implements was shared by his neighbors and many would come to him for advice. In later years he found that his inventions or improvements, none of which had been patented, had been patented by people who had no part in their designing but who exploited him by obtaining patents and thereby capitalized upon his ideas. In addition to his farming interests he was the community dentist, having made his instruments at his own forge from wrought iron. He had no formal training in this line but read all material available upon the subject and was considered goof for those days. In sparsely settled areas this was common as someone had to relieve suffering, or cause it.
Together, he and Catherine achieved success due to faith, strength of character and hard work. In the church he was equally diligent and the neighbors described him “as a powerful hard man”. Because of his personality, piety and prosperity he was admired and respected. Early in life he was elected an Elder in Bethel Presbyterian Church and was thereafter known in the area as Elder Sharp. He presided over the congregation much as he did over his own large family at home in stern fashion unknown today. For this he received the respect of all.
The Bible and the Blue Back Speller were the most prominent books in the household of Elder John Sharp, according to the Rev. Earl Cline, a great grand-son. Children and grand-children who lived with him were well versed in the teachings of the Bible and the Presbyterian Catechisms. Those who excelled in this knowledge were given books as prizes. The Blue Back Speller with its maxims was also studied and its rules of conduct along with the A, B, C’s were put into use in daily living. From those books the family learned to enjoy reading of other books and the quest for knowledge grew with an appreciation for education.
Catherine and John Sharp were the parents of fourteen children, thirteen of whom reached mature years. They also reared five grand-children, the children of Catherine Lovely Sharp and James J. Kelley. They both died only a few months apart. James J. Kelley gave his life in defense of Ft. Sumter dying of wounds in 1964, his wife dying December 6, 1864 leaving the five orphans, the youngest being about three months of age. Edwina Kelley Wilson has passed on the following reminiscences from her father, James Edwin Sharp Kelley, one of the grandchildren: “My father was only three months old when his grand-parents took him. When he began walking if either of them sat down, he immediately crawled up in their lap. Consequently, his pet name was “Little Lap Dog”. When he was about five years old, he and grandfather were out in a field near their house. The little boy spied an apple tree loaded with red apples across the way. Of course he wanted an apple, but the tree happened to be on a neighbor’s land. His grandfather sat down on the fence and took the little boy in his lap and explained to him in a wonderful kind way, but a very firm way, the meaning of honesty and why he could not pull a single apple from the tree. A wonderful lesson in honesty and one that Edwin Kelley never forgot and passed it on to his children.
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