03 February 2018

Thomas Sharp's Intellectual Books

Thomas Sharp, my great-great-great-grandfather (b 16 Feb 1808; d 9 Sept 1896, both in Salem, OH) was described as “a curmudgeonly agnostic abolitionist Quaker”[1] 

Thomas Sharp
Sarah Antrim
Married to Sarah Antrim in 1830, they had four daughters and one son.  My great-grandmother, Reba Baxter, was the daughter of their middle child, Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Sharp and her husband, John Lendrum Baxter.

Thomas and Sarah became Hicksite Quakers, following the more restrictive doctrine (plain clothing and few personal niceties), which held that divinity is achieved through obedience to the “inner light”.  In fact, the doctrine rejected the virgin birth of Christ and held that Jesus was the son of God only in that he had achieved this harmony with his inner light.