Sharpe, Hezekiah D.

Born: 1811-12-03 Pomfret, Connecticut

Died: 1897-09-23 Brooklyn, New York

Flourished: New York, New York

Hezekiah Davis Sharpe was an abolitionist and businessman. Sharpe moved to New York City in 1837, the same year that Horace Greeley, Henry C. Bowen, and Charles L. Tiffany arrived in the city. Sharpe, Greeley, Bowen, and Tiffany became friends and roommates. In 1840, Sharpe married Elizabeth Truman, with whom he had four children. After his marriage, he moved to Brooklyn, where he lived for the remainder of his life. In politics, he supported first the Whig Party and later, and its dissolution, the Republican Party. Sharpe's professional career was in the dry goods business, first in association with Arthur Tappan & Company and later on his own with the firm of Thorn, Haff, & Sharpe. A staunch abolitionist, Sharpe also engaged in anti-slavery activities. During the 1863 New York Draft Riots, Sharpe saved Lewis Tappan and his family from the rioters, finding them shelter in Massachusetts. In the last twenty years of his life he worked in the clock and bronze department of Tiffany & Company.

The New York Times (NY), 26 September 1897, 7:6; Gravestone, Green-Wood Cemetery, Greenwood Heights, NY.