The Jarrells of Floyd County, Kentucky Who were Mary Sharpe's parents? |
Mary Sharpe Parks (1715-abt 1772) was William Jarrell's mother-in-law, and the mother of William's wife Susannah Parks. We don't have any reliable information on her parents, but most internet trees will tell you that they were Elias Sharpe and Margaret Proctor, who are desirable ancestors. A colorful history is claimed for Elias Sharpe; it's said that he was a convict who was transported to Virginia for theft (it's likely that the thief, who really existed, was a different person with the same name). The Proctors also have a colorful history; family founder John Proctor was one of the earliest colonists in Virginia, arriving at the starving colony of Jamestown in 1610 after enduring a shipwreck in Bermuda during the sea crossing. His wife Alice spent three weeks fighting off an Indian attack in 1622 while John was away from home. The Proctors had their dark side too, with accusations that they beat two indentured servants to death (Henricus.org). Their son George Proctor was a participant in Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, where the action included the burning of Jamestown by the rebels. The rebellion failed, and George was one of 40 men who were required to make a public apology afterwards before they could receive the king's pardon. The next in the line of descent was George Proctor Junior, and Margaret Proctor (Elias Sharpe's wife) was the daughter of George Junior. Unfortunately there isn't a shred of evidence that Elias Sharpe and Margaret Proctor were Mary Sharpe's parents. There is also no proof that they were NOT her parents, so there's room for hope. But the available evidence points in a different direction so it probably wasn't them. It's a lot more likely that Mary was the daughter of Linsfield Sharpe of King George County and his wife Frances. Perhaps the most compelling evidence is also the simplest. Mary Sharpe and her husband John Parks had 17 documented children (9 boys and 8 girls). In a time when it was customary to name your children after close family members, not one of the kids was named Elias or Margaret after their alleged grandparents. But they did have children named Linchfield and Frances. The sons, in order of birth, were William, John, Thomas, Winfield, Benjamin, Charles, Linchfield, Samuel, and George. The daughters, in order, were Rachel, Betsy, Mary, Ann, Mildred/Milly, Frances/Franky, Susannah, and Sarah. The names Linchfield and Frances are further down on the list of children than we'd usually expect, but perhaps John Parks didn't get along very well with his in-laws. The heirs in Linsfield Sharpe's will include a daughter named Mary Sparks, but no Mary Sparks can be found; this is likely to be a misspelling of Mary Parks. There are also timing issues suggesting that Elias and Margaret may have been too young to be Mary's parents. If we drop our preconceived notions about Elias being a transported thief, we can reasonably speculate that he was a member of the King George family, possibly a son of Linsfield Sharpe's brother John. We don't have a precise date of death for Mary Sharpe Parks. She was still alive in October 1768 just before the family moved to North Carolina; her name appears on the deed selling the family's Virginia land (FamilySearch). She may have died before September 1772, when her husband John made a deed of gift transferring all his property to his children, with no mention of his wife (FamilySearch). She is also not mentioned in his 1787 will (FamilySearch). Let's look at Elias Sharpe first and then move on to Linsfield Sharpe.
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For Elias Sharpe and Margaret Proctor to be Mary Sharpe's parents, they would have to be married before her birth in 1715. No documentation can be found for their birthdates or their marriage, so we have to look at the circumstantial evidence. Most online trees give both of them a birthdate around 1690, but I haven't found any justification for this and it looks like they may have been born significantly later. A two-part article by Jim Maddox on Genealogy.com provides a considerable
amount of information on the subject.
Maddox Part 1 says that he researched Elias Sharpe with the stated goal
of eliminating him as a family member; I prefer to let the evidence speak
for itself while trying to avoid preconceived notions. In any
case, the article tells the story of Elias Sharp the thief who was
transported in 1725, and concludes that this is the same Elias Sharpe who
married Margaret Proctor because an in depth study of King George county
revealed records of only one Elias Sharpe. This is not a convincing
argument. There
doesn't appear to be a record of any Elias Sharpe in Virginia before 1735, and he didn't appear in King George until
1739. Apart from having the same name, there is nothing connecting
Margaret's husband to Elias the thief. Maddox Part 1 provides documentation showing that Elias the thief was transported on the ship Rappahannock Merchant in 1725. But it was common for passengers to die during sea voyages and we have no evidence that this Elias was still alive when the ship landed at Port Royal, Virginia. It was also very common for new colonists to die within a year of arrival and their demise usually wasn't recorded. Even if they survived, there were many immigrants as well as American-born citizens who never made any appearance in the record books, which were mostly geared toward land transactions and court records, not births, marriages and deaths. There are records of people named Sharp in several Virginia counties during this time period. If Elias the husband of Margaret Proctor wasn't the same person as Elias the thief, he could have come from any one of these families. The first record known of an Elias Sharpe in the New World is a Feb 1735 Spotsylvania County deed (1736 on the modern calendar) in which he and John Proctor (Margaret Proctor's brother) buy 230 acres of land from George Proctor (probably Margaret's brother but possibly her father, whose date of death is uncertain) for five shillings. If this is Elias the thief, we have no idea where he was from 1725-1735; but during that time he managed to work his way up from a convicted criminal who must have been sold into indentured servitude upon arrival, to the trusted associate and/or son-in-law of a family that was prosperous enough to give land to two daughters. This seems rather improbable unless Elias concealed his criminal past from the family. The law was not more forgiving to child thieves than it was to adults, so Elias the thief could have been underage when he was transported. He was not a clever, ambitious or high-class sort of criminal; he was caught in the act of taking a pair of leather pants from a child who was walking on a public road. If Elias the thief married Margaret Proctor, he went from not having enough wits to successfully steal from a child to being slick enough to marry above his station. The date of the 1735 deed indicates that Elias the husband of Margaret was born before 1714, but we have no other documentation for his age.
George Proctor's 1731 will names his children as George, John, Margaret, Mary and Elisabeth (it looks like Proctor lived for several more years; he had definitely died by 1737, and his will was proved in 1738). It looks like no one is a minor, so presumably they were all born before 1710; if Katherine Frank or a subsequent wife was their mother, they must have all been born after 1694. Frustratingly, the will doesn't tell us the daughters' last names. We know that Mary and Elizabeth were already married when the will was written; in 1725, Proctor gifted land to Mary and her husband Charles Stewart (FamilySearch), and in 1728 he gifted 180 acres to Elizabeth and her husband George Home (FamilySearch). But we have no information on Margaret and Elias Sharpe until the 1735 Spotsylvania deed. It's probably safe to assume that Margaret and Elias were already married when this transaction took place, and they were definitely married by 1737 when a series of documents for another piece of land state that Margaret Proctor is the wife of Elias Sharpe (FamilySearch). These documents state specifically that John Proctor is a resident of King George county and Elias Sharpe is a resident of Spotsylvania. 1737 is also the year that Elias was the plaintiff in a case of trespass, assault and battery against his brother-in-law George Home (FamilySearch #1 and #2). For a long time I was misled by page 130 of this Jstor article which says: "Deed, Spotsylvania, Aug., 1727 from George Proctor, of King George County, to John Proctor and Elias Sharpe, of Spotsylvania county, conveying 435 acres on Hazel Run, Spotsylvania, which his father, George Proctor, had intended to have given to said John Proctor and George Proctor, Senior's daughter, Margaret, wife of Elias Sharpe. [It is difficult to see how the dates of this deed corresponds with that of the will of George Proctor (above) unless George Proctor made known his intention during his lifetime]." The dates don't correspond because the author was mistaken and the deed was recorded in 1737, not 1727 (FamilySearch). George Proctor Senior didn't just wish for the transfer to happen; the land was bequeathed to John Proctor and Margaret Sharpe in his 1731 will, and John and Elias sold the land to George Proctor Junior in 1737 after George Senior's death. By March 1739 (March 1740 according to modern conventions) Elias had entered into a lifetime lease in King George county (FamilySearch) and apparently made his home there for the rest of his life, although he still had business in Spotsylvania with a November 1740 debt case (FamilySearch). The leased land is on the banks of the Rappahannock and formerly belonged to George Proctor, but its precise location can't be determined. Elias witnessed a will in King George in 1742 (FamilySearch). In 1744, Elias Sharp and John Sharp served together on three juries (FamilySearch; the records are on three consecutive pages). This is a curious situation; is this a coincidence, or did they know each other? If Elias is related to this family, it's pretty much impossible for him to be the same person as Elias the thief. In 1746 Elias was listed in an estate accounting (FamilySearch). But this was a post-mortem record, since Elias had died intestate by December 1745. His widow Margaret was appointed administrator, along with Richard Elkins and John Booth (FamilySearch #1 and #2). Margaret was remarried to Aaron Grigsby sometime between December 1745 and November 1746 (FamilySearch).
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1747: King George Court Orders 4 Sept 1747 It is ordered that George Sharp serve Richard Elkin till he arrive to the age of 21 years the said Richard is to learn him the trade of a carpenter and cooper and to pay him lawful free dues. (pg 545) [quoted from Maddox Part 2; the court order books from 1735-April 1751 can not be located online (FamilySearch)] 1751: King George Court Orders 5 April 1751 George Morton, gent, is appointed guardian to George Sharpe having with John Taliaferro gent entered into a bond in 100 pounds for the same. (page 713). [quoted from Maddox Part 2; the court order books from 1735-April 1751 can not be located online (FamilySearch)]. George Morton was a Gentleman Justice of the court and so was John Taliaferro. 1752 the estate of Richard Elkin paid cash to George Morton guardian for the orphans of Elias Sharp. Note that orphans is plural. (FamilySearch) The internet says that in 18th century Virginia, apprenticeships typically began around the age of 10-15, so if George Sharp was apprenticed in 1747 we can estimate his birthdate as 1732-1737. In 1765 George sold the land he inherited from his father Elias, claiming ownership as Elias' "eldest son and Heir at Law" (FamilySearch). This establishes that his birthdate was no later than 1744. 1755 it is ordered that Elizabeth Sharpe be bound to Jael Reeds according to law (FamilySearch). Maddox Part 2 thinks that Elizabeth might be the daughter of Elias and Margaret, and it's very possible that he's right. Using the same yardstick of being bound out at age 10-15, we can estimate her birthdate as 1740-1745. 1755 Maddox Part 2 proposes that the Margaret Sharpe who was a witness in a court case (FamilySearch) could also be the daughter of Elias and Margaret, but this is very doubtful. There were several Sharpe families in the county that Margaret could belong to, and there's no indication that she is a child or an orphan. The text in the court document is very different than what the Maddox article states even though it's the same page number that Maddox cited; but it's clearly related to the same case so it's satisfactory. It is obviously not impossible that these children have a much older sister Mary who was born in 1715, especially if Margaret Proctor was not the first wife of Elias Sharpe. But it seems more likely than not that Mary is not the daughter of Elias. Maddox Part 2 notes that there is no record of a Mary Sharpe in King George from 1720-1759, but this is not significant. Women are usually given short shrift in colonial records, and Mary Sharpe changed her surname when she married John Parks in 1732. We have no particular reason to expect a record of her in King George anyway. Elias wasn't recorded in King George until 1739, several years after Mary's wedding. Where might we expect her? The Parks and Related Families indicates that Mary's husband John Parks was born in Essex county. There were so many changes in county lines that it was possible to live in four other counties without moving very far at all, and this may have been exactly what John Parks did. Spotsylvania was created from Essex in 1721, Orange from Spotsylvania in 1734, Albemarle from Orange in 1744, and Amherst from Albemarle in 1761. John Parks has deed activity in all of these counties during the appropriate timeframe. He was apparently living in Spotsylvania when he married Mary in 1732, which is the same county where Elias was recorded in 1735 and 1737. If Mary really was the daughter of Elias, she was exactly where we'd expect her to be. It's the rest of the evidence that isn't convincing, not the location. The John Parks family including Mary moved to North Carolina in 1768 and there are no further records of them in Virginia. Maddox Part 2 dismisses the Parks diary sight unseen, but the diary looks like a generally reliable source for the dates** and it doesn't talk about birthplaces. It's true that tree owners have been letting their imagination run wild on the children's birthplaces, but there is no supporting evidence for these claims so they can be dismissed. Based on the available documentation, it seems safe to assume that the children were all born in Virginia, probably in several different counties due to the frequent changes in county lines or even due to an actual move. **The biggest objection to the diary is that it shows a birth in December 1733 followed by a birth in February 1734. This is due to a change in dating conventions. At this time, the calendar year began on March 25. The day after March 24, 1734 was March 25, 1735, and March 24, 1734 was about three months AFTER December 31, 1734. February 1734 under the old calendar is February 1735 under the modern calendar. So there isn't a problem with the diary dates after all. There are also entries where a birth in October 1738 is followed by a birth in March 1739 which is not physically impossible; but the date is March 1740 using modern conventions which makes more sense. The switch to the modern calendar was made in 1751.
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I did an AI search of FamilySearch's Virginia records to look for other Sharpe families who could be alternate parents for Mary. It was immediately apparent that the best candidates were in King George county, where a Linsfield and John Sharpe were recorded many times from the 1720s into the 1750s. It is obvious that they were closely related to each other. Linsfield's name had a variety of spellings, and by the 1750s it was frequently being spelled as Linchfield. A 1729 King George order book entry says that Linsfield's wife was Judith and John's wife was Frances (FamilySearch). But this is backwards; the original multi-page, multi-transaction 1720 Richmond County records that it refers to say that Linsfield was married to Frances and John was married to Judith (FamilySearch). Later documents agree that it was Frances and Linsfield (Ancestry) and Judy and John (FamilySearch #1 and #2). John Parks and Mary Sharpe had children named Linchfield and Frances, in a time period when it was customary to name your children after family members. They did not have children named Elias or Margaret. This is a very significant clue about who Mary's parents were. As a reminder, the sons of Mary Sharpe Parks in order of birth were William, John, Thomas, Winfield, Benjamin, Charles, Linchfield, Samuel, and George. The daughters, in order, were Rachel, Betsy, Mary, Ann, Mildred/Milly, Frances/Franky, Susannah, and Sarah. Mary's father-in-law was named Thomas, and son #3 was his namesake. Sons Charles and Samuel were apparently named after John Parks' brothers, and Benjamin may have been named after Mary Sharpe's brother. The name Winfield is a mystery, and there are undocumented claims that John Parks married a woman named Sarah Winfield. John Parks was born in 1706, and was old enough to have had a previous wife before he married Mary Sharpe in 1732. But the Parks diary says that Mary Sharpe was the mother all 17 children, and doesn't mention a prior marriage.
The Maddox-John Sharp article tells us that Linsfield and John Sharpe were brothers, and they had a sister Mary who was underage in 1706. This sister can't be the wife of John Parks, since we know that John's wife was born in 1715. Apparently there were no other siblings. It's implied that Linsfield and John were adults in 1706, giving us a birthdate before 1685. It looks like their parents hadn't married yet in October 1681 which narrows it down further. They were certainly old enough to be the father of Mary Sharpe Parks, and the records prove that both were married before 1720. The Maddox-Seven Linsfields article provides more information on sorting out the family. Linsfield Sharpe was born in Virginia. His father John Sharpe, his mother Mary Linsfield and his grandfather Richard Linsfield were all in Virginia by 1681, but we don't know where they were born or who their parents were; they could have been American-born or they could have been immigrants. It's possible that the Sharpe line descends from the early settlers of Jamestown, but it can't be proved. There was a Samuel Sharpe who arrived in Jamestown in 1610 on the same ship as John Proctor; his descendants, if any, are unknown (Wikipedia). There was also a William Sharpe who either arrived on the Starr in 1611 (Wikipedia), or on the same ship as the other two in 1610 (Wikipedia); the sources disagree on how he arrived, but they do agree that he arrived. William had at least two sons in Virginia, but there is little information on descendants. Sharpe is not a particularly unusual name, so there could be more than one Sharpe family in the New World with no relationship to each other. The arrival date of the first Linsfield is unknown. We do not have information on the children of Linsfield's brother John. Some interesting links involving the family that are not directly relevant to this article:
Some additional links where the name is spelled Linchfield: FamilySearch #1, #2 There are several other candidates to be Mary's father in the right general area, including Stephen Sharp in Spotsylvania in 1722 and 1726 (FamilySearch, Library of Virginia); Joseph and William Sharp who lost their rights to a 1728 land grant in Spotsylvania/Orange (FamilySearch); Richard Sharp in Spotsylvania in 1726 (Library of Virginia); John and William in Spotsylvania in 1728 (Library of Virginia); Francis Sharp in King George in 1726 (FamilySearch). But none of these show a compelling family connection like the act of naming a child Linchfield, and there is little or no further record of these men. The first son of Mary Sharpe Parks was named William and there isn't an obvious reason for it, so that is certainly a name to watch out for; but there were no sons named Stephen, Joseph, Richard or Francis. But we shouldn't rule out a connection. Stephen Sharp's 1726 grant was in the Massaponax Swamp area, which is the same area where John Parks bought his first piece of land.
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If Mary Sharpe was from King George county, we have to explain how she came to marry a guy who lived in Spotsylvania. The Parks diary tells us that John Parks and Mary Sharpe got married on Mary's 17th birthday. A respectable young woman wasn't free to roam the countryside looking for love, and John's responsibilities as a landowner may have prevented him from doing much traveling.
Actually traveling between these locations might be complicated, since there wasn't a direct road or river route. The terrain looks fairly gentle on the satellite view, so it might be doable on horseback or on foot. What might bring Mary and John together? Church services for one thing. I couldn't find any information on what churches existed in the area during this time period, but in general they weren't as numerous as they are now. When a church was available, people were expected to attend even if it took them hours to get there. Churches were a natural gathering point for the community on a day when they weren't supposed to be working anyway. Family visits might be another reason, if we let go of preconceived notions about Elias Sharpe being a transported thief. An unencumbered young man was free to move to another county, and the rest of the family might want to see him in his new home. The only thing we really know about Elias is that he was born before 1714 and had a son born in the 1730s who was named after Elias' father-in-law. There is nothing preventing Elias from being a member of the King George county Sharpe family or from being about the same age as Mary, but he apparently wasn't the son of Linsfield Sharpe. Elias predeceased Linsfield but his son lived on, and Linsfield's will did not include Elias' son among the heirs. Elias moved to King George county after his father-in-law's death; was it because he had family connections there?The Spotsylvania land that Elias and Margaret inherited from George Proctor in 1737 is on a creek called Hazel's Run, and the land that Elias bought in the 1735 deed is on the branches of Hazel's Run. The other points mentioned in the land descriptions are not identifiable so we don't know the exact location of the land. If the land was near the headwaters of Hazel's Run, it was only a couple of miles from the presumed location of John Parks' land.
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Other family history articles: |
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Article by Carolyn H (a descendant of Mary Sharpe) 2025 All rights reserved |