Originally published in the Bellefontaine Examiner | Monday, August 18, 1941 by columnist Dalton A. Young.
In the presence of relatives from this and many other communities in all sections of the State, the New England granite monument honoring the memory of a remarkable Logan county woman, Dr. Phebe Haines Sharp (1759 – 1833), was unveiled at 4 p.m. Sunday in a field bordering the East Liberty-Middleburg pike.
More than 50 automobiles lined the highway as their occupants gathered about the small fenced off space, opened from the highway, which formed a picturesque setting for the monument. The ceremony was both colorful and impressive.
Heber Henke, of the American Legion, representing also the Logan County Historical Society, as did Roy Blessing, Secretary of the Bellefontaine Chamber of Commerce, led the opening song, “America.” Prentiss Sharp, a descendent of the honored woman and President of the Sharp reunion organization, was in charge of the program.
Rev. W. H. Randall, pastor of the Goshen Friends church, reading from the Daniel Antrim Bible, read the Scripture lesson and offered a prayer. Mrs. Metta Landgraver, a great-grandaughter of Dr. Phebe Sharp, unveiled the monument and singing of “Blest Be the Tie That Binds,” and a prayer by Rev. Leland Wiley concluded the program.
The marker in February 2025, nearly 84 years after the ceremony.
Baskets of flowers had been placed about the monument and additional color was added by the presence of Bellefontaine Police Captain S. E. Hostetler, attired in the dress of the famed Indian Chief Blue Jacket.
Dr. L. E. Traul, of Middleburg and Bellefontaine, representing the Logan County Medical Society, Attorney and Mrs. Dow Aiken, Job C. Sharp, Mrs. F. E. Hines of Greenwich, and others were present. Dr. Traul’s biography of Dr. Sharp, which he read as part of the ceremonies, is as follows:
Dr. Phebe Haines Sharp was born in a Friends settlement in the colony of Burlington, NJ, where the Haineses were large land owners. She came from the Puritan stock of England. After marriage, she went into Pennsylvania near Philadelphia. After the Revolutionary War, the family and other Quaker relatives went into Culpeper county, VA. Her parents were Solomon and Rebecca Sharp Haines, persons of prominence in that colony.
She counted among her ancestors teachers, preachers, and high government officials. One of the latter played [such]an important part in framing the governmental policies that his portrait hangs in Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
In childhood she became so impressed with the opportunity of service to her fellow man in the medical profession that she [ignored] the irony and contempt imposed upon a woman who was so forward as to enter upon one of the learned professions. Encouraged by educated parents, she prepared for the medical profession. Her preparatory education was obtained in New Jersey schools and her professional studies in Philadelphia.
She married Job Sharp, a fine surveyor and the son of a fine surveyor. The went into Culpeper county, VA, in a Quaker colony in about 1796. Here, they were brought face to face with the enormities of the African slave traffic as it was shown there, and they determined to seek a home where this plague would not face them and their children.
The ordinance of 1787 has opened for settlement miles upon miles of woodland and forests. One clause in that State paper was appealing: “Slavery should always be forbidden.”
A Virginia neighbor, Philip Slaughter, had obtained patents for several 1,000-acres of surveys of military land in this Northwest Territory. After taking a trip into this territory, Job returned to Virginia and deeded his lands on October 20, 1800, to Slaughter in return for 500 acres of Survey No. 3154 near what is now Middleburg.
The family moved to this farm in 1801.
The group consisted of a son, Joshua, a daughter, Ocsah McWade (1781 -?) and husband Arthur, a young daughter, Sarah (1794-1850), and Phebe’s brother, Carlisle Haines and his wife. They arrived in 1801.
Editor’s note: The group above is only a portion of the Job and Phoebe Sharp family. The rest of the children are Ruth (1782 – 1782), Abigail (1784 – 1784) , Elizabeth (1784 – 1792), Esther (1784 – 1879; married Thomas Antrim), Joshua B. 1785 – 1849), and Rebecca (1790 – 1800).
Job Sharp surveyed thousands of acres of land in what are now Champaign and Logan counties, while Phebe rode across hills and vales administering to bodies and souls of all within her reach, rich or poor, white or Indian.
The relatives with large families followed the Sharp family quite fast, obtained large acreage and they had their Quaker colony. There were never molested by the Indians and nobody ever went away hungry from the Sharp cabin.
It was Phebe Sharp’s dying request that she be buried on this knoll at the side of the Indian path. Here great living desire was “Let me live by the side of the road and be a friend to man.”
She passed to her reward and here body was placed near this designated spot.
