The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-12-05
A CORNER IN ANCESTORS
By FRANCES CowLEs.
THE STAR P FAMILY
Copyright, 1915, by Mcclure Newspape.
 Syndicate)

 Syndicate.)
 1 There were many settlers named Sharp who came from England, Scot land, Sweden, Holland and Ireland to settle in this country, and it is rather difficult to tell who came first. But the majority of them came from Eng i land, and the family there is very old. ! The English name is of Anglo Saxon 1 origin, and used to be spelled also Scharpe and Scarpe. Then it became Sharpe, and since about the sixteenth l century it has been spelled either with or without the final "e."
 However. the family got it's name, it increased rapidly, and by the time col onization in America was usual many Sharps were ready to seek the new world, However, 1t is noticeable that many more Sharps came to America in the eighteenth century than in the seventeenth
 One of the earliest settlers of the name was Robert, of London, who came to Brookline, Mass, in 1885, in the ship Abigail. He had two children, Abigail and John. who married Martha. John was killed by Indians in a fight they had with the colonists in 1876. He left three children--Martha, William and Robert.
 Another important section of the family in New England was established, so far as we know, by Thomas of Strat- ford, Conn. We first hear of Thomas in 1701, when he was married to Lydia Dickinson. He was well-to-do and well educated and citizen of a good deal of prominence, and was one of the 3S to whom the general assembly of Con- necticut granted charter for the new township of Newton. He had five chil- dren, Thomas, Mary, William, John and Elizabeth. Several of his grandchildren served in the revolution and one of his great grandchildren, Lugrand Sharp, was 8 great worker among the Methodists of New England, and pio- | neer in the work in certain parts of Vermont
 The family in New Jersey was estab- lished by William and Thomas Sharp, who came over in the Samuel in 1882 and settled at Burlington, N J. They | came from Oak Lane, County Middlesex, 1 England, and brought their families with them. Their descendants still have in i their possession seveiaI things which William brought with him, among them an old eight-day clock, that winds with cut a key, and a two-gallon bottle. John, Jeremiah, William, Thomas, Sarah, Eliza beth, Rebecca and Hanna were favorite l names among the early Sharps of New Jersey, and they interrnarried with the Allens the Coates the Brintnalls, the Paines, the Austins and many other old families of the state.
 The coat of arms of the branch of the fla nily in Yorkshire is blazoned: Azure a pheon argent within a bordue or, charged with eight tortea1lx The crest is an eagles head erased azure, ducally gorged or, holding in tine mouth pheon argent.
 The coat of arms of the Scotch family is described: Argent, d fesse azure be- tween two crosses crosslet fitchee in chief
  laide, he was educated at EIton and Sand hurst, and began his military career as a captain in the Seventh Hussars. He served in Matabeleland in 1896 and in South Africa during the Boer war, and in both campaigns showed fine mettle and won medals clasps and the diStin-