Francis Marion Sharp Submitted by Gregg E. Davies 120 Ted Price Lane Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Francis Marion Sharp Captain Francis Marion Sharp was born in Union County, S. C., in 1825, but since 1854 has been a resident of Louisiana. He is the second of two sons and two daughters born to James and Lavina Giles Sharp (whose mother was a Mitchell), who were born, reared, married, and spent their lives in Union County, S. C., being well-to-do farmers, and in their religious views members of the Presbyterian Church. The grandfather, William Sharp, was born of English parents and died in South Carolina. The mother's father, John Giles, was in all probability born in that state an died in Union County, a farmer. Capt. F. M. Sharp is the only one of his father's family now living; he received a moderate school education in the country schools. When he was about eight years of age his father died, and at the age of twenty he began doing for himself, managing his mother's farm, which he continued to do for four years. He then went to Alabama, thence to Georgia and in 1854 to Arkansas, coming the same year to Louisiana. Here he was married in 1859 in Natchitoches Parish to Martha Ann, daughter of Isaac Carradine (who was born in Mississippi, married in Texas, and served as a soldier throughout the Texas War against Mexico and died in Natchitoches Parish, La., where he and his wife, M. E. Carradine, were staying a short time for their health). Mrs. Sharp was born in Sabine County, Texas, and has borne Mr. Sharp seven children, three sons and two daughters now living. The Captain resided in Natchitoches Parish until 1860, then came to Montgomery, where he was in business for a few years, but since the war has managed his present plantation of 600 acres, of which 125 are cleared and under cultivation, all having been earned by his own efforts. In 1862 he joined Capt. Hardy's Company, Twenty-eighth Louisiana Infantry, as second lieutenant, and after serving for a short time in camp in Northern Louisiana he resigned his position and came home, where he and some others raised a company and entered the Louisiana State service, in which he held the rank of first lieutenant, being afterward promoted to captain. He has been constable and deputy sheriff of Grant Parish, and is a member of Montgomery Masonic Lodge No. 168, himself and his wife being worthy members of the Baptist Church. (The above article copied from "Biographical and Historic Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana", published 1890 by The Southern Publishing Company. Submitted by Greggory Ellis Davies, Winnfield, La.)