SHARP, Harriet

SHARP, COATES

Posted By: Becky Applegate
Date: 12/15/2004 at 07:51:33

Plattsmouth Journal, Monday, April 14, 1919

IN MEMORY OF TRULY REMARKABLE WOMAN [page 6]

MRS. HARRIETT [sic] A. SHARP, THE MOTHER OF L.C. SHARP, WHO DIED LATELY CAME WEST IN EARLY DAY
Saw First Cabin Built in Omaha Resided in Plattsmouth Continuously for 50 Years

Plattsmouth has just lately lost through death, one of its most remarkable women one who during the latter years of her life lived quietly in our midst, yet whose early history reads like a romance, being filled with unusual activity. We refer to Mrs. Harriet A. SHARP, mother of Lee C. SHARP of this city and Will A. SHARP, of Grants Pass,Oregon.

Miss Harriet A. COATES was born February 20, 1828, at Canadiagua, New York. Soon afterwards, the family moved to Buffalo, where a disastrous fire set by the English who invaded the country, destroyed their home and but few souvenirs were saved. These Mrs. Sharp kept as relics of the event. While still an infant, the family of Miss Coates moved to the then wilds of Michigan, where they took up life as back woods settlers and there as she grew up the deceased woman experienced all the privations becoming the life in which they were then engaged. Shortly after settling in Michigan, the father, Jason Coates, who was a relative of the members of the firm of J. & P. Coates, thread makers, died leaving the mother of a family dependent upon her own efforts for a livelihood. And that was long before the days of Mother's pensions.

Miss Harriett secured an education as best she could with the limited means at her disposal. She was successful in acquiring a good bit of book learninng and was soon able to pass the examination for a teacher, and became at an early age an instructor in the schools adjacent to her home.

After a time thus spent the came west via St. Louis, arriving at Cainsville, Iowa, and later Council Bluffs, in the year 1852, being then 24 years of age. She secured a school at this latter thriving young town, it being a subscription school and entailing, among other things, the boarding around among her pupils so common to teachers in those days. While at Council Bluffs she often visited across the river, in Nebraska territory, and was there when the first log cabin was constructed in the present-time city of Omaha, and saw the workmen busy building it. After having lived in Council Bluffs for a number of years she removed to Glenwood where she continued her vocation of teaching. It was there she met and became acquainted with Ewing S. SHARP, to whom she was married on November 22, 1859.

They continued to reside in Glenwood but a short time, moving from there to the east bank of the Missouri river opposite Plattsmouth, where they established a trading post, which became known as Sharpsburg, in honor of their home and business. There they did a thriving business in receiving and forwarding merchandise, which was shipped in and out via boats plying up and down the Missouri river. At that time, railroads were few and scarce in the thinly settled west and no overland trains were even dreamed of as yet. Here they continued to reside through the years of the Civil war, during which time were born Will A. SHARP, now of Grants Pass, Oregon, and Lee C. SHARP, of this city.

In 1863 Mr. and Mrs. Sharp and their two sons moved to Plattsmouth where Mr. Sharp entered into business, engaging in the lumber and merchandising lines. Building for himself and family a home in this fast growing village, this continued to be Mrs. Sharp's place of abode almost continuously through the more than fifty years that have elapsed since the family first settled here, and it was here she passed the last hours of her life.

After their removal to this place, a third son, LaFayette SHARP, was born. Twelve years later, on August 8, 1880, Mr. Sharp passed away, leaving his wife and three sons. The body was taken to Glenwood for burial. Still later, in 1894, LaFayette, the youngest son, then a machinist
employed in Omaha, died and was buried beside his father in the Glenwood cemetery.

Mrs. Sharp resided in this city almost continuously from the time of her coming here in 1868 until the time of her death, living all this time in the homestead at the corner of Garfield park.

Blessed with an excellent memory, this remarkable woman, who also had the gift of fine conversational ability, would ofttimes entertain the younger generation in recounting
incidents of early life in this section of the country, and the experiences which the pioneers passed through. In those days, the spirit of co-operation had not been developed to the fine point it now has, and when one wanted anything, it was necessary in most cases that they make it themselves.

Clothes were of the home-spun variety and other necessities of life were for the most part produced by the users themselves. Stoves were not to be had and the old fashioned fireplace
was the popular place to cook, as well as affording the means of heating the house, which was seldom, during the winter months, any too warm. Cooking was done in a pot swung from the andirons over the blaze in the fireplace.

Such a convenience as a sewing machine was unknown in those early days. Mrs. Sharp recalled on numerous occasions of having once gone some twenty-five miles to see a sewing bird, an invention which held the cloth while the operator did the sewing by hand. They dressed all their meat, made their own lard, soap, sugar, etc., purchases being limited to salt and crude iron tools and implements. Yet this good woman was privileged to see the day of automobiles, aeroplanes, and fast-moving trains and trolley cars.

With such a vast fund of experience, it is but natural that a character should be formed different in its aspects from that of the many who werent privileged to experience the hardships of early day pioneering. Naturally enough improvement of any kind was slow to be accepted by this remarkable woman, as the old ways often seemed best and newer methods which conflicted with her former life and experiences were not accepted. Her idea and practice was to economize and she often marveled at the extravagance of the present day generation, declaring it would be the means of causing widespread ruin and disaster.

She criticized the present administration, and could not see why there should have been the last war, holding that America could not assimulate [sic] the foreigner or cope with his influence and when the armistice finally brought an end to hostilities, she did not believe the president
should have gone to Europe, as even greater necessities required his presence at home. She also expressed the opinion that no diplomats of this country can cope with the foreign experts, and the result will be another war to untangle the alliances of the present peace treaty. Her mind was a storehouse of economic theories, evolved through a long life of pioneer hardship and her will, unconquerable, continued to fight for the ideas which she believed for the best. Thus, in the closing years of her life did the circle of her more intimate friends narrow as one by one they were unable to see and understand everything as she saw and understood it, and she herself became more or less of a recluse. She reached the outer life and the world largely through her son, Lee C. Sharp, who continued most devoted to her since the time of the passing of the husband and father in 1880.

Thus, one by one are being severed the links that connect the past with the present as the architects of the past are laying down their tools, finding it difficult to use them since fleeting time has drawn new plans for which these tools are not adapted. A new age is here and with it has come new conditions many of which seem strange to the pioneers of the past.

As a mother, Mrs. Sharp was most devoted to her three sons, whom she loved to such an extent that she considered them solely as her children in the later years and ofttimes offered criticism of their doings when she deemed it for the best, but in all was most sincere. She could not reconcile herself to the invasion by a daughter in the affections of her sons, a right which she considered belonged solely to her, which condition in their lives caused her much disquietitude [sic] a trait in her mother-love which she thought should not be shared in part by another. Hers was of the spirit which moved our hardy pioneers to conquer the forest, to make the plains subservient to the needs of civilization, and in short to overcome all obstacles in lifes pathway. Such spirit is truly American, uncontaminated by foreign influence, and fostered by such ideals as furnished in the lives of Washington, Lincoln and other great men of the past ages.

Mrs. Sharp was a direct descendant of the Coates thread people of England, but she like her forefather, who fought these people in Revolutionary times, maintained the contest even to the last. She was also related to the family of President U.S. GRANT, though not of near kin.

This pioneer woman lived a life filled with earnest work and a tender interest in the lives of others. Her training was of the old school of experience which in this instance turned out a pupil whose insight into the depths of life was much deeper than that gained by the present day scholar. She has passed to the other world, but her stay here was one rich in experience and filled with sympathy for her fellow traveler.

Underneath her pillow, after death had claimed her soul,was found the following short poem, symbolic of her view of life:

Not Understood

Not Understood, we move along asuntler [sic];
Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep.
Along the years. We marvel as we wonder
Why life is life. And then we fall asleep NOT
UNDERSTOOD.

Not understood, we gather false impressions;
And hug them closer as the years go by;
Till virtues often seem to us transgressions
And thus men rise and fall and live and die NOT
UNDERSTOOD.

Not understood how trifles often change us.
The thoughtless sentence or the fancied slight
Destroy long years of friendship and estrange us;
And on our soul there falls a freezing blight

Not Understood how many cheerless,
lonely hearts are aching. For lack of sympathy. Ah! Day by day
How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking;
How many noble spirits pass away NOT UNDERSTOOD.

Oh, God! That men could see a little clearer;
Or judge less harshly where they cannot see.
Oh, God! That men would draw a little nearer
One another. They then be nearer Thee AND UNDERSTOOD.