J. E. Sharp a retired capitalist of Santa Ana, was born in East Tennessee, November 17, 1809, a son of Joseph and Sarah (Lamb) Sharp, who had but two children: the subject of this sketch and a boy named Prophet, who died in 1850. The parents died in 1828, the father one day and the mother the next.
In 1830 Mr. Sharp went to Illinois, where for several years he followed farming in Madison County; after this he went into the mercantile business at Bunker Hill, Illinois, and subsequently he moved to Litchfield, that State. In 1864 he came to California and spent the first ten years in Sacramento County. In 1874 he came to Westminster, where he followed farming two years; then he purchased property in Santa Ana and built two houses. Since then he has been in the real-estate business until about two years ago. He also owns property in Pomona.
Mr. Sharp is a true Christian gentleman, and has been an active worker in the Baptist Church for over fifty-four years.
He was married first in 1832, to Mary E. Robinson, a native of North Carolina, and a daughter of Zachariah and Elizabeth Robinson. By this marriage there was one child-Sallie A., now the wife of William Kell, of Pomona. Mrs. Sharp died June 12, 1873, and December 21, 1875, Mr. Sharp married Mrs. Clarissa M. Trask, of Jefferson, Maine; her parents were Alexander and Mary (Curtis) Trask, who had ten children.