John Sharp and Mary Hunter by RHB
John Sharp was born to John Sharp and Cecilia Russell on October 15, 1785 in Clackmannan, Scotland.
Mary Hunter was born to John Hunter and Helen Patterson on December 17, 1787 in Clackmannan, Scotland. In her late teens Mary was courted by John and they were married on August 30, 1807.
The fertile rolling hills of Clackmannan, Scotland were used for farming until shallow sites of coal began to be harvested prior to 1550. By about 1625 coal mining began in earnest. As the demand for coal increased, more of the farm laborers were diverted to the mines, and conditions became severe and dangerous as the mines began to deepened. Several generations of Sharps and Hunters probably lived and died working these mines.
"Collier" follows the name of John Sharp. Living for numerous generations in the same small area seems to be more a factor of birth than choice. The Sharps, Russells, Hunters, and Condies all seemed embedded for generations in the Clackmannan mining area. Clackmannanshire is the smallest county in Scotland, stretching 10 miles to the north and south and 11 miles east and west. On the south it rises gently from the River Forth, broken by undulating hills, the river Devon, and the Ochil hills framing the northern border.
The Sharps were probably among the many mining families moved around to suit the work demand and conditions as decreed by the mine owner. Fishcross, a town in the center of Clackmannanshire, built a windmill in the early 18th century to drain a coal pit. This windmill would have been a familiar sight for the Sharps since the 1841 Clackmannan Census found "John Sharp 56, coal mining, Mary Sharp 54, Joseph age 13, Adam age 16 and Anne (Agnes) age 18 at Fish Cross, Colliery Village, East of Turnpike Road.
Fishcross was built shortly after 1783 to house the workers in the Devon Iron Works or possibly the pits along the Coalsnaughton Road. It was comprised of five rows of stone built houses arranged around the cross roads at its center. A mining village, now like most of the neighboring villages, a dormitory town for Alloa and other larger towns.
Elder William Gibson brought the gospel to the Sharps in Clackmannan and the LDS Church records lists five of them being baptized in May 1847. According to the records of Margaret Condie Sharp, John’s eldest son John was baptized May 2, 1847 and ordained an elder shortly thereafter. He performed 105 baptisms in the 12 months from September 12, 1847 to September 13, 1848. Son John baptized his sister Agnes Sharp Paterson and her husband; his parents, John Sharp and Mary Hunter on October 30, 1847; and his brothers, Joseph and Adam, in the two weeks from October 24 to November 6,1847. He baptized his wife Jean Paterson Sharp December 12, 1847. His sister Catherine Sharp Wilson, then a widow, was baptized February 7, 1848. He baptized Janet Cook August 27, 1848. The next day she married Adam Sharp in the Clackmannan Parish Church.
John and his family were therefore some of the first Scottish saints. As quoted from Howard Bennion who visited Clackmannan in 1919 “Although the great majority of those who joined the Mormon Church in Scotland were the lowly esteemed colliers, the anger of the clergy was stirred and mob action aroused. A Parish Clerk told me this story, ‘This is the verra hoose where the Mormons were holdin’ a meetin’ when the mob came and rapped on the door and demanded entrance. He said, Thomas Condie held them talking while the Mormons slid out the back windows and through the fields to Sauchie.” Perhaps because of this persecution, John and Mary decided to leave Scotland and join the saints in America.
John and Mary along with their seven children emigrated to America on the ship Erin’s Queen from Liverpool, England on Thursday, September 7, 1848 with 232 saints under the direction of Simeon Carter. The Sharps landed at New Orleans on October 28, 1848 and continued on to St. Louis, arriving on November 6, 1848.
The Sharps located seven miles from St. Louis in Grove Diggins and worked in the Gravois coal mines. From Gibson Condie’s journal: “During the summer of 1849 cholera broke out — a real plague — many died. Then, a fire destroyed much property in St. Louis. This seemed to clarify the atmosphere and the disease cleared away. Fever and ague were prevalent.” Mary Hunter’s health had been weakened on the long sea voyage where their food became scarce. When cholera seized her just after they had arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, she didn’t have enough resistance to withstand its ravages. She died in June 1849 during this epidemic at the age of 61 ½ years.
The John Sharp Company traveled as an independent company crossing the plains to Utah with about 15 to 20 wagons. According to the research of LeGrande G. Sharp, the route the Sharp family traveled is as follows: They left St. Louis and traveled “westward along the south side of the Missouri River until they reached Marshall, Missouri, which was the place they would pick up the Santa Fe Trail. This they would follow to Westport Landing, which is now Kansas City, and the town where the Oregon Trail began. They would then travel on north and west through Marysville, on north and west following the Blue River until they met the Overland Trail at Fort Kearney on the Platte River about three hundred miles from Westport Landing; on up the Platte River for about one hundred and fifty miles until they had reached the spot where the North and the South Platte join and the trail swings slightly south into what is now Colorado.” It took about thirty-six days to cover this distance making the average distance approximately eleven miles per day, “giving a possible date of departure from St. Louis of April 22, 1850.”
The Sharp family traveled from Julesburgh “north and west along the North Platte River up into what is now Wyoming, then south to the Crossings of the Sweetwater where a few years later John’s son, Joseph was to lose his life, then on south and west to Fort Bridger, down Echo Canyon, on through Emigration Canyon and finally to enter the valley of the Great Salt Lake on August 28, 1850.”
“Upon their arrival, they went to Red Butte Canyon and made camp. Why they did not join the Saints in the city at that time cannot be explained. One story has it that some members of the family had not been thoroughly converted and so were undecided as to whether to stay or go on to California and look for gold; while another story says there had been some sort of misunderstanding between the Sharp family and some of the Church officials back in St. Louis. Whatever their reasons, they were still in Red Butte Canyon when snow came early that year, and so the sharps dug into the hillside, used wagon boxes for roofs, walled up the front with stones and waited the winter out.” (There are no remains of the winter camp left in the canyon.)
John and his children eventually settled in the 10th ward on 9th East. John died in Salt Lake City in 1853 at the age of 68.
Compiled and edited by Ruth H. Barker
Source: Handwritten history of Cecilia Sharp Barker
Joseph Sharp by Bonnie B. Rice
Ira B. Sharp’s History of Mary Hunter Sharp – Who Died En Route
The Sharp Family from New Orleans to the Great Salt Lake Valley by LeGrande G. Sharp, June 2, 1967
Submitted by Ruth H. Barker, 2010