Sharp, Joseph R.

SHARP, RUSSELL, TODD, HUSTON, BERKSHIRE, JEFFREY, WIGHTON, WILSON, WESTFALL

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/15/2009 at 09:18:28

Joseph R. Sharp, one of the best farmers of Poweshiek Township, Jasper County, has a history full of romance, the scene of which is laid in many lands. He was born in the town of Ardrie, in Scotland, in 1845. His parents were John and Mary (Russell) Sharp, and his father was a miner by profession. He died when Joseph was only four years old. His mother married William Todd for her second husband. Joseph had one own brother, Henry, who died some years ago, and one sister, Ellen, also deceased, who was the wife of Hugh Huston.

Joseph left home at the age of eight years, and resided with an uncle, thus losing sight of the second family reared by his mother. Of this family, however, he knows that George is now living in Pennsylvania, and that Margie married and resided for a time in Braidwood, Ill., where her husband, a miner, was drowned in 1880. While living with his uncle, Joseph attended the common schools of the neighborhood until he was twelve years of age, when he himself became a miner, and worked for two years in the mines about Ayrshire, Scotland, for thirty-six cents per day, out of which he was obliged to support himself. Thence, at the age of fifteen, he traveled to Australia and worked for four and a half years in the coal mines of that country, returning again to his native land, where he remained for a year, thence came to the United States, and landed in New York February 28, 1865.

Still adhering to his business of mining, he went first to the mining regions of Maryland and Virginia, and for about a year was employed in the Big Hampshire mines, where he cleared on the average $6 per day for his labor. For a year or two he moved back and forth between the mines of Maryland and those of Illinois, spending some time at both Morris and Lacon, Ill., and then went to Pittsburgh, where he remained for four years. He moved from Pittsburgh to Murphysborough, Ill., and remained there, working in the mines for ten years. In 1877 he came to Iowa and followed mining until 1890. Upon his first arrival in Iowa he purchased a farm of twenty acres, which he subsequently sold, and later on, purchased the property on which he now resides, a fine farm of two hundred and forty acres, all under a high state of cultivation.

When he landed in New York he brought the accumulated savings of his years of labor in Scotland and Australia, amounting to $1,000, and this he has increased by his industry and economy to a handsome competency. He makes a specialty of Shorthorn cattle and fine hogs, but also raises wheat, corn and oats.

On the 24th of June 1869, in the city of Pittsburgh, Mr. Sharp married Miss Elizabeth Berkshire, a Scotch lady, and daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Jeffrey) Berkshire, who were of English and Scotch ancestry. Mr. Berkshire died in Glasgow, Scotland. Mrs. Berkshire, at the age of seventy-five, resides in Colfax, Iowa. They were the parents of six children: Elizabeth, now Mrs. Joseph R. Sharp; William, John; Jennett, wife of David Wighton; George, and Agnes, wife of Archibald Wilson.

Joseph R. Sharp has never filled a county office, but has been either elected or appointed to nearly all the offices of the township, and is at this time, 1893, Treasurer of the township, and President of the Township Board of Health. He has been President of the Township School Board for several years, and Supervisor of the township a number of terms. He is a member of Murphysborough Lodge No. 498, A. F. & A. M., and of Colfax Lodge No. 476, I. O. O. F. He is also a Trustee of the Scotch or Free Presbyterian Church of Colfax, where he and his family worship. Mr. and Mrs. Sharp have five children: John living in Oklahoma; Richard; Elizabeth, wife of Silas Westfall; Joseph and George, and an adopted son, Henry. Portrait and Biographical Record, Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, IA (page number not given)