WIREFRAME ONLY - NOT YET DESIGNED
1729 - 1799
Caleb Sharp, who also appears in historical records as “Sharp Caleb” or simply “Sharp,” was born in 1729. His mother was an Indigenous woman named Deborah, or Deb, a reminder of the presence of Indigenous as well as African people in Deerfield and the surrounding region. The Reverend Jonathan Ashley “Baptized Deborah Calap [Caleb] an Indian Woman” on September 21, 1741. Deerfield’s town historian Sheldon referred to her son, Caleb, as “part or wholly of Indian blood.” He first appears in the surviving record as “Negro Sharp”, enslaved in the household of Colonel Oliver Partridge of Hatfield, Massachusetts Caleb's next enslaver was Samuel Dickinson of Deerfield who purchased him from Partridge. By 1753, Caleb was enslaved to Colonel William Williams of Deerfield.[i]
Caleb served in King George's War (1744-48) from 1747-1748 in Captain Elijah Williams Company, and was posted at Fort Massachusetts in present-day North Adams, Massachusetts. He reenlisted during the French and Indian War, serving as a private in Captain Samuel Well’s Company at Crown Point, New York, from April 11 – December 11, 1755 Apr. 11- Dec. 11, 1755 and again with Captain Williams in 1756.
Perhaps as a result of payment he received for his military service, by 1755 Sharp Caleb was Caleb Sharp, a free man who may at that point been living in present-day Conway (still part of Deerfield and incorporated in 1767.) Sharp would later own a half share in a grist mill in Conway. He married
Elisabeth Abel, Jr. on September 23, 1773. A history of the town printed in 1867 referred to Caleb Sharp as “half negro and half ‘Indian, or something else” and described him “as a vigorous man, a
builder of saw mills and grist mills” who had built “before or by the incorporation of the town, a grain mill running where the mill now stands.”
Caleb Sharp appeared in the 1790 census for Conway with eight people in the “Other” category- where residents identified as people of color were recorded. The couple had several children, one of whom, Caleb Sharp, Jr., was among the builders who constructed Deerfield’s Greek Revival style brick meetinghouse in 1824.[ii]
In 1799, the town of Conway recorded the death of “Caleb Sharp a black man” aged 70, of “consumption” (likely tuberculosis.) [iii]
[i] Deerfield resident William Williams credited Oliver Partridge’s account for work “by his Negro Sharp” in a Day Book entry of February 16, 1751 that "Colo [Colonel] Oliver Partridge Cr [credit] By his Negro Sharp". Daybook of William Williams,, 17501753, Smith College Special Collections.
[ii] Charles B. Rice, Harvey Rice, and William Howland , Celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Conway, Massachusetts : at Conway, June 19th, 1867 ; including a historical address by Rev. Charles B. Rice, poem by Harvey Rice and oration by William Howland (Northampton, MA: Bridgman & Childs, 1867) , 21
[iii] Conway, Massachusetts Vital Record in Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Digitized by FamilySearch International), 2012.