San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HENRY MABES SHARP
Among the foremost agriculturists of
San Joaquin County is Henry Mabes Sharp, born at Napa City, California, March
17, 1880, a son of Henry W. and Emily (Mabes) Sharp. Henry W. Sharp was born in South Lyndboro,
New Hampshire, March 28, 1850, and his father, John W. Sharp, was born in
Boston in 1823. Great-grandfather John
Sharp was a native of Yorkshire, England, who immigrated to America about 1820
and settled in Boston, where he was a stonecutter. Grandfather John W. Sharp also learned the
trade of stonecutter and he married Miss Susan B. Cram, whose father was a
soldier in the War of 1812. She died
February 7, 1923, in her ninety-fifth year.
The original immigrant of the name of Cram came to America from England
in 1739. Grandfather John W. sharp came
to California via Cape Horn, arriving in San Francisco in 1850. He mined in Tuolumne County and afterward in
Calaveras County. Henry W. Sharp, the
father of our subject, accompanied his mother to California in 1852 and was
joined by the husband and father in San Francisco.
John W. Sharp then went to Mokelumne
Hill, where he built a hotel in 1853, which was burned down in 1855. He then turned his attention to mining and
accumulated considerable means. He next
built a fine hotel for those times in Calaveritas, which also burned down in
1858 during his absence in Carson Valley in search of a good cattle range. He then started a small store which he
conducted but a short time, when he sold out and moved to San Andreas, where he
built a store of the native rock, quarried, dressed and placed it himself, and
kept a general store until about 1863, this building is still standing. From 1864 until 1868 he conducted the
Metropolitan Hotel in San Andreas, then moved to San
Francisco, where he carried on the old Barnum restaurant near where the Palace
Hotel now stands, until called away by the White Pine excitement in Nevada,
which proved a failure. He then carried
on the Revere House in Napa until 1873, then conducted a general store in
Darwin, Inyo County, for about two years, but was burned out. This worthy pioneer couple
were the parents of three children:
Henry W., the father of our subject; Charles F.; and a daughter, Harriet
Sophia.
Henry W. Sharp went to school in San
Andreas until about fifteen years old, when he went to San Francisco to learn
the printing business. He afterward
worked on the Napa Register and later on the Yolo Mail, and for a time was the
owner of the latter paper. On
Thanksgiving Day, 1873, he was married to Miss Emma Mabes, a native of
California. In 1876 Henry W. Sharp, in
partnership with his brother, C. F. Sharp, bought their father’s store in
Darwin which the operated for about three years. Their next venture was the Ormsby House in Carson City, Nevada, which they conducted for
about six years; then they conducted the Andrews Hotel in San Luis Obispo only
six months, when it was destroyed by fire.
In August, 1886, they took charge of the Yosemite House in Stockton, at
that time one of the best hotels in central California. In 1887 the father moved to the Lafayette District
of San Joaquin County and bought 130 acres of grain land, which he has steadily
improved until it is now under a high state of cultivation. He later disposed of thirty acres leaving 100
acres still in the possession of himself and son, Henry Mabes, our
subject. The father still resides on
sixty acres of the old home place.
Henry Mabes Sharp received his
education in the schools of Stockton.
From early boyhood he has been interested in agriculture, helping his
father in the many duties connected with the growing and production of fruit
and worked side by side with his father in the improvement of the home
ranch. Today he owns forty acres of the
home place, five acres of which is in orchard and thirty-five acres in bearing
vineyard.
On April 23, 1907, in Stockton, Mr.
Sharp was married to Miss Florence Nicholson, born at Martinez, California, a
daughter of Golder and Martha (Green) Nicholson. Her father was also a native of California
and she was only a year old when he passed away. Her mother subsequently married Alfred
Wilson, and they had six children:
Alfred, Jr., enlisted in the U. S. Army during the late war and has
never been heard from; Cyril resides at Lodi; Mrs. Anna Nicewonger
resides in the Lafayette district; and Mrs. Violet Moore in the same locality;
Bert; Alice is Mrs. McCambra of Hayward. Mr. and Mrs. Sharp are the parents of two
daughters, Edna May and Alice. In
politics both are Republican, and fraternally Mr. Sharp is a Mason, a member of
Woodbridge lodge, and a member of the Knights of Pythias of Lodi, while Mrs.
Sharp is a member of the Eastern Star of Woodbridge and is a past chief of the
Pythian Sisters of Lodi; they are both members of St. John’s Episcopal Church.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
591-592. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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