Jeremiah Sharp, physician, surgeon, and druggist of Stockton, has been prominently identified with the medical profession of Jo Daviess County for more than twenty years. He is rightly considered one of the most skillful, experienced, and successful practitioners in this part of the State, and he enjoys a large practice. He received a fine medical education, and besides had the advantage of serving as surgeon in various hospitals in the late war, and thus had a wide and invaluable experience in a few short years that he could not have gained otherwise in a life-time.

The doctor was born in Harrison County, Mo., May 2, 1835. His father, Peter L. Sharp, was born in 1803 in Powell's Valley, near Crab Orchard. Va. He was reared to the life of a farmer and followed that occupation during his life. He settled with his parents in Kentucky in 1822, and emigrated from there to Harrison County, Mo. In 1827 he came to Galena and worked in the lead mines the ensuing five years. While a resident of that city he was married to Jane B. Johnson, daughter of Jonathan Johnson, a wealthy merchant of Galena, and subsequently of Dubuque, Iowa. In 1832 the parents of our subject returned to Missouri, and on their way down the river rode in the same boat with Black Hawk, who, then a prisoner of war, was on his way to Washington. In the fall of 1839 Mr. and Mrs. Sharp, with their family, removed to Iowa, which was then a wild, sparsely settled territory, and settled in what is now Centre Township, ten miles west of Dubuque, in Dubuque County, and there the father died March 12, 1871, and the mother in March, 1884. They had ten children, of whom are living: John D.. a resident of the State of Washington; William B., who lives in Willamette Valley, thirty miles south of Portland, Ore., is wealthy, and the owner of one of the finest farms in America; our subject. James, a merchant of Roodhouse, IL.; Kate, now Mrs. Humphrey Armstrong, of Minneapolis; Mary, Mrs. George Armstrong, of Roodhouse, IL.

The subject of this sketch received the basis of his education in the public schools of Iowa, and took private lessons in literature of the learned Prof. F. Henry, of Dubuque County, Iowa. He began reading medicine. In 1857 with Dr. John Warmouth, formerly a noted physician of that county. After studying diligently under him two years the excitement of the discovery of gold at Pike's Peak led him to abandon his studies for awhile to seek his fortune in that auriferous region. He remained there nearly three years, engaged in mining for the precious metal, and in the fall of 1861 returned to Iowa with his gains. He then resumed his medical reading, and in the following spring received a letter of introduction to the surgeon-general of Iowa, and he became a volunteer surgeon of the Estes House hospital in Keokuk, and afforded valuable assistance in the care of the wounded sick, and dying soldiers. Wishing to still further qualify himself for his great work, and perfect his medical education, in the fall of that year he became a student in the medical department at Ann Arbor. Mich. After applying himself very closely to his work there for six months, he entered the Iowa Medical University (now the College of Physicians and Surgeons), and was graduated from that institution in June, 1863. He then passed^an examination, and was commissioned First Assistant Surgeon of the 32d Missouri Infantry. Union Army, and was afterward transferred to the Washington hospital at Memphis, Tenn., and served there and in other hospitals in that city until after the close of the war, receiving his discharge in July, 1866. The doctor then dropped his profession for awhile, and turning his attention to the mercantile business, established himself in Cotton Plant, Ark. But at that time the hostile feeling against Northerners, or anyone who had been on the Union side, run so high the Confederate sympathizers very unjustly incited it against our subject, and he was obliged to flee for his life, leaving all his property behind him; his partner, a rebel captain, appropriating it to his own use. The doctor came to this county in the fall of 1866, and, settling in Hanover, practiced his profession there until 1869, when he removed to Morseville. and opening an office there built up an extensive practice, and during the last ten years of his residence in that village owned a drug-store there. A fine opening in Stockton presenting itself for a physician and druggist, the doctor built his present establishment in the spring of 1888, and in the month of June removed to this village, where he has ever since been in active practice.

While in the hospital at Memphis. Dr. Sharp met Mary J. Adams, one of the brave nurses of the war, who sacrificed the comforts of a pleasant home, and bravely faced the dangers and hardships of hospital life that she might administer to the suffering and dying soldiers. The acquaintance began under such auspices ripened into a deep attachment on both sides, and May 2, 1865. were united by the sacred tie of marriage, they having resolved to continue their work together beyond the walls of the hospital. She was a native of Grand Rapids, Mich., born Oct. 27, 1889. She began her life in the hospitals under a commission from Mrs. Livermore, of the Sanitary Commission of Chicago, and proved herself to be one of the most efficient, faithful, cool-headed nurses in the service. She spent nearly four years of her life in the hospitals in Chicago, St. Louis, Vicksburg, and Memphis, and was well-known and beloved by the soldiers for her kind and tender treatment. The pleasant wedded life of our subject and his amiable wife was closed by her death Feb. 23, 1883. Not only her own household sustained a grievous loss, but society in general. She was a consistent Christian and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and died in the full triumph of her faith in immortality. Of her marriage with our subject one child, Carrie B., was born March 16, 1867. She has received every advantage for a good education, and is highly accomplished, especially in music, having a natural talent for it. She is the wife of Frank Hammond of this place, and they have one child—Benjamin N.

The doctor is a man of vigorous, cultured intellect, and is a true, noble-hearted gentleman, whom none know but to honor for the record of a singularly pure and blameless life. He is the " beloved physician " in many a household, where his friendship is valued equally with his professional services. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is identified with the Masonic order (in the chapter), belongs to the. A. R.,and is an honorary member of the Modern Woodmen. In politics, he is a strong Republican. He never seeks official honors and refuses them if offered to him.

Transcribed & Contributed by Christine Walters Portrait and Biographical Album of Jo Daviess and Carroll Counties, Illinois (1889),