Solomon Porcius Sharp (August 22, 1787 – November 7, 1825) was an American lawyer and politician, serving as attorney general of Kentucky and a member of the United States Congress and the Kentucky General Assembly. His murder by Jereboam O. Beauchamp in 1825 is referred to as the Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy or "The Kentucky Tragedy."
Sharp began his political career representing Warren County in the Kentucky House of Representatives. He briefly served in the War of 1812, then returned to Kentucky and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1813. He was re-elected to a second term, though his support of a controversial bill regarding legislator salaries cost him his seat in 1816. Allied with Kentucky's Debt Relief Party, he returned to the Kentucky House in 1817; in 1821, he accepted Governor John Adair's appointment to the post of Attorney General of Kentucky. Adair's successor, Joseph Desha, re-appointed him to this position. In 1825, Sharp resigned as attorney general to return to the Kentucky House.
In 1820, rumors surfaced that Sharp had fathered a stillborn illegitimate child with Anna Cooke, a planter's daughter. Sharp denied the charge and the immediate political effects were minimal. When the charges were repeated during Sharp's 1825 General Assembly campaign, opponents publicized the allegation that the child was a mulatto. Whether Sharp made such a claim, or whether it was a rumor started by his political enemies, remains in doubt. Jereboam Beauchamp, who had married Cooke in 1824, avenged the honor of his wife by fatally stabbing Sharp at his home early on the morning of November 7, 1825. Sharp's murder inspired fictional works, most notably Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished play Politian and Robert Penn Warren's novel World Enough and Time (1950).
Personal life
Solomon Sharp was born on August 22, 1787, at Abingdon, Washington County, Virginia. He was the fifth child and third son of Captain Thomas and Jean (Maxwell) Sharp, a Scottish woman. Through the male line he was a great-great-grandson of John Sharp, Archbishop of York. His father Thomas Sharp was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, participating in the Battle of King's Mountain. The family briefly moved to the area near Nashville, Tennessee, and to North Carolina before settling permanently about 1795 at Russellville, Logan County where they lived in a log cabin near the Muddy River.
Sharp "[intermittently attended] one of Logan County's academies" during his childhood years; the schools of Logan County were primitive at the time. He read the law and was admitted to the bar in 1806. He opened a practice in Russellville, but soon relocated to the busier Warren County seat of Bowling Green, which had 154 residents in 1810. He engaged in land speculation, sometimes in partnership with his brother, Dr. Leander Sharp, and by 1824, had acquired 11,000 acres, mostly north of the Barren River in Warren County.
Marriage and family
After becoming established, on December 17, 1818, Sharp at the age of 31 married Eliza T. Scott, the daughter of a physician who had served as an officer in the War of 1812. She was from Frankfort and above him in social standing. They had three children together. He moved the family to the state capital of Frankfort in 1820 for his political career.
Political career
In 1809, Sharp was elected to represent Warren County in the Kentucky House of Representatives. During his tenure, he supported the legislature's election of Henry Clay to the U.S. Senate, the creation of a state lottery, and the creation of an academy in Barren County. He served on a number of committees, and for a time served as interim speaker of the house during the General Assembly's second session. He was re-elected in 1810 and 1811. During the 1811 session, Sharp worked with Ben Hardin to secure passage of a bill to ensure that state officers and attorneys at law would not be involved in dueling. He also opposed a measure allowing harsher treatment of slaves.
Sharp's political service was interrupted by the War of 1812. On September 18, 1812, he enlisted as a private in the Kentucky militia, serving under Lieutenant Colonel Young Ewing. Twelve days later, in a rapid rise even for the militia, he was promoted to major and made a part of Ewing's staff. Ewing's unit was put under the command of general Samuel Hopkins during his ineffective expedition against the Shawnee. In total, the expedition lasted forty-two days and never engaged the enemy. Sharp recognized the value of a record of military service in Kentucky politics, however; he was eventually promoted to the rank of colonel.