Isaac Frederick Tharp
Isaac Frederick Tharp was born on the David Stevenson farm in Monroe Township, Adams County, Ohio, on the twenty-fifth day of September, 1875, the son of Isaac Tharp. He showed a taste for learning and books at the age of five years, and acquired knowledge from them as rapidly as his circumstances and surroundings would permit. His mother died when he was eighteen years of age. He determined to qualify himself as a teacher, and did so at a great sacrifice. He sold his last horse in 1898 to obtain money to attend a Normal school at West Union. In 1899, he obtained a certificate to teach in the Public schools in Adams County; and was so favorably known in the district of his own home that he was employed to teach the Public school there. He began it in the Fall, and continued it until the ninth of January, 1900, when he was taken sick with what proved to be typhoid pneumonia. His disease baffled all medical skill, and he died on the seventeenth of January, 1900. On the day following, he was buried beside his mother in the Nesbit cemetery.
He had subscribed for this work at the first opportunity, and looked forward with great pleasure to its forthcoming. He was one of the eight subscribers to the work who were called away after ordering it and before its publication. He was a model young man in every respect, and it seems a great pity that he could not have been spared to complete what promised to be a most useful life. He left a precious memory to his friends and a bright example to the world.
From "History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time" - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900