Solomon P. Sharp

Solomon P. Sharp

Solomon Porcius Sharp was an American attorney and politician. He served as attorney general of Kentucky and a member of the United States Congress. His murder by Jereboam O. Beauchamp in 1825 is referred to as the Beauchamps–Sharp Tragedy or \”The Kentucky Tragedies.

About Solomon P. Sharp in brief

Summary Solomon P. SharpSolomon Porcius Sharp was an American attorney and politician. He served as attorney general of Kentucky and a member of the United States Congress and the Kentucky General Assembly. His murder by Jereboam O. Beauchamp in 1825 is referred to as the Beauchamps–Sharp Tragedy or \”The Kentucky Tragedies. Sharp’s murder inspired fictional works, most notably Edgar Allan Poe’s unfinished play Politian and Robert Penn Warren’s novel World Enough and Time. Sharp was the fifth child and third son of Captain Thomas and Jean Sharp, a Scottish woman. Through the male line he was a great-great-grandson of John Sharp, Archbishop of York. His father Thomas Sharp was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, participating in the Battle of King’s Mountain. Sharp married Eliza T. Scott, the daughter of a physician who had served as an officer in the War of 1812. They had three children together. He moved the family to the state capital of Frankfort in 1820 for his political career. In 1809, Sharp was elected to represent Warren County in the Kentucky House of Representatives. He was re-elected in 1810 and 1811. On September 18, 1812, he enlisted as private Colonel Young Ewing, serving under Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hopkins Hopkins. Sharp eventually was promoted to the rank of colonel and was elected Thirteenth Colonel of the Kentucky Militia.

He never engaged in military service in Kentucky politics, however; he never recognized the value of the enemy and never engaged the enemy in combat. Sharp died on November 7, 1825, at his home in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He is buried in Warren County, Kentucky, in a plot of land owned by his brother, Dr. Leander Sharp, and by 1824, had acquired 11,000 acres, mostly north of the Barren River inWarren County. Sharp is survived by his wife, Eliza Scott, and their three children, all of whom were born in the early 1800s. He also had a son, Solomon P. Sharp, who was born in 1806 and died in 1827. He died in his sleep in Frankfort, Kentucky; he was buried in the town of Bowling Green on November 8, 1828, at the age of 83. He had a daughter, Elizabell Sharp, with his second wife, Anna Cooke, who he married in 1824. Sharp also had one son, Samuel P.Sharp, who died in 1850. Sharp had a second son, Thomas P. and a daughter-in-law, Anna P. Cooke, with whom he had two children. Sharp served in the U.S. House of Reps. in 1813 and 1814. He returned to the House in 1817, and in 1821, he accepted Governor John Adair’s appointment to the post of Attorney General of Kentucky. His support of a controversial bill regarding legislator salaries cost him his seat in 1816. He resigned as attorney General to return to Kentucky House.