Henry J. Sharp
Henry J. Sharp, physician and surgeon, London, was born in Gallia County, Ohio, March 2, 1845. His father, Dr. E. T. Sharp, a native of Penn. removed to Ohio at an early day, where he reared a large family, practicing his profession for over forty-five years and, by natural selection, the subject of our sketch has transferred to his own the professional mantle which the father, through declining years, let drop from his shoulders. The father and mother both having surpassed the limit of life, as sung by the Psalmist, are now residing at Worthington, Franklin County, Ohio. Henry was the ninth of a family of eleven children, and is the youngest of three brothers now living. Living so close to the border, and at the important rendezvous, Gallipolis, the headquarters of the military department of West Virginia, during the late war he became imbued with the war spirit, and though too young for the volunteer service, enlisted while not yet sixteen years old in the Ohio National Guard, Company C, One Hundred and Forty-first Regiment. His company, during the raids and threatened raids of the rebel Gens. Wise and Morgan, was frequently under arms, doing guard duty at Gallipolis and other points on the Ohio River, until the call for the hundred-days men by President Lincoln, when the One Hundred and Forty-first Ohio National Guard, Col. Jaynes commanding, was transferred to West Virginia and divided into detachments, were stationed at the different garrisons on the line between Charleston and Guyandotte, West Virginia, thus relieving the garrisons at these places and permitting them to be transferred to the more active services at the front, under Grant in East Virginia. After about four months' service, the One Hundred and Forty-first was ordered to Gallipolis, discharged and mustered out of the service. The subject of our sketch entered a local academy, and after a few months here, his parents moving to Franklin County, he matriculated in the Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, where he continued his studies, leaving there in 1868, to take up the study of medicine. He studied medicine under the preceptorship of Dr. J. W. Hamilton, of Columbus, and being his only student for nearly two years, gained largely in valuable experience and practical participation, as an assistant to his preceptor in all extensive surgical and general practice. He graduated in medicine from Starling Medical College, in the spring of 1871, and settled during October of the same year in London, where he soon acquired a lucrative practice, and is now doing an extensive and remunerative business. Dr. Sharp belongs to the students and progressive men of his profession, finding time. aside from the actual practice to contribute to the literature of his profession by articles written for the various medical journals, and for participation in the proceedings of various medical societies, being a member of the American Medical Association, the Ohio State Medical Society, the Central Ohio Medical Society and the Madison County Medical Society. He was married to Miss E. C. Dooris, of Zanesville, Ohio, April 10, 1872. His wife is a lady of culture and of future promise in literature, she having contributed in the past to different periodicals, and having only laid down her pen for devotion to the growing demands of an interesting family, that, for the time, overshadow all other pleasures and duties of less moment. The Doctor and his wife are both members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and by their devotion and work have aided largely in the erection of a handsome church building on Fourth street, in the city, where the society hold their services. They have living three children – Henry J., Leighton and Wilfred.
From HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY - W. H. Beers [Chicago, 1883]