My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM SHARP is one of the most successful business men in Sedalia, and commands an extensive trade in pianos, organs and musical instruments in this of the state. It is now just ten years since he opened a store in this place at No. 112 East Fifth Street, where he remained for nine years, then moving to his present location, No. 406 South Ohio Street. For more than twenty years he has been an agent for the Kimball pianos, and now keeps a full line of Kimball, Hale, Hinze, Mehlin and other standard makes. Having learned piano-tuning in his early manhood in Bourne, England, he has followed that calling to some extent, and possesses a thorough knowledge of the mechanism of various musical instruments, thus making him an authority on the subject.

William Sharp was born in Bourne, Lincolnshire, England, in 1835. His grandfather, who bore the same Christian name, was a farmer, but the father, also William, was a watch and clock-maker by trade. The latter moved to the United States in 1851 with his wife and children. Going to Port Washington, Wis., he engaged in farming for a short time, then resumed his trade in Milwaukee. His last years were spent at Crystal Lake, where his death occurred at the age of eighty-seven. In religious faith he was a Methodist. His wife, formerly Anne Stokes, was likewise a native of Bourne, and died in Chicago at the age of fifty-five years. She was a daughter of William Stokes, a contractor on stone-work. Of Mrs. Sharp’s six children, three sons and two daughters still survive. Josiah was burned to death before leaving England. Thomas was Orderly-Sergeant in a Wisconsin regiment during the Civil War, and John also enlisted from the same state.

Our subject was reared in his native land until he was fourteen years old, and attended the public schools until two years previous to that time, when he was apprenticed to learn the grocer’s trade, serving two years. In 1849 he carried out his long cherished wish to come to the United States. Leaving Liverpool on the “New Constitution,” he landed in New York City just three weeks to a day later. As his uncle, Thomas Stokes, was in Toledo, he proceeded thither, and became a printer on the old Toledo Democrat. A few months later he went to Cincinnati, and for a year was clerk in a commission office. Going back to Toledo, he next took a wagon train through the Maumee Swamps to Wisconsin. Forty miles over corduroy roads were traveled, he passing but one house during this time. Then for eight months he worked on a farm near Oshkosh, and afterwards on one near Port Washington. In the winter of 1856-57 he was Principal of the Port Washington schools, and for a short time he took contracts for cord wood, which he had chopped, and which he delivered with his own team. In the summer of 1858 he sailed on the schooner “Honest John,” and then resumed teaming for eight months, after which he became bookkeeper and collector for a wood and coal company.

November 8, 1860 (the day on which Lincoln was elected), Mr. Sharp and Marguerette E. Roberts were united in marriage. The lady is a native of Buckingham, England, and by her marriage has become the mother of nine children, as follows: William J., now traveling for his father; Emily L., Mrs. Warren, of St. Louis; Mrs. Anna S. Mais, of St. Louis, Mo.; Alice M., Mrs. S. H. Thomson, Secretary of the Colorado Humane Society, and a resident of Denver; Louisa J., wife of Dr. Fred Jones, of Dresden; Lillian, a teacher in the Broadway School; Florence E., deceased; Frederick, who is in business with his father; and Clarence.

Soon after his marriage Mr. Sharp engaged in farming near Bloomington, McLean County, and at the end of two years bought two hundred and forty acres of railroad land in Champaign County, Ill. This place he improved and carried on until 1865, when he sold out and settled on a farm hear Paxton, Ill. In 1867 he came to Missouri, and for eight years operated a farm near Tipton, Moniteau County. Afterwards he embarked in business in Tipton, as a dealer in musical instruments and sewing-machines, and on the expiration of that time came to this city. He was the first man in central Missouri energetic enough to send out agents into the surrounding country for the purpose of obtaining orders for musical instruments. He now keeps in stock a full line of sheet music and all appliances usually found in a well equipped store of the kind.

While a resident of Tipton, Mr. Sharp was a School Director for four years. He has been a Republican since 1856, and helped to elect Fremont and Lincoln. He is a charter member of the Royal Tribe of Joseph. In his early manhood he became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for over twenty years was a local preacher. He has filled nearly every position in the church, was Superintendent of Sunday-schools in Wisconsin, Illinois, and in Tipton, and is now Treasurer of the Board of Stewards.