Horatio Sharpe

Horatio Sharpe (* 1718 in England , † October 9, 1790 in the county of Herefordshire , England) was a British colonial governor of the Province of Maryland .

resume

Horatio Sharpe was born in England in 1718 to William Sharpe and Margaret Beake into a wealthy family. He had 15 siblings. Horatio entered the service of the British King George II and was initially a captain in his army. In 1745 he took part in the crackdown on the Jacobite Rising in Scotland. He then continued his military career. He rose to lieutenant colonel and was meanwhile also deployed to the West Indies . He stayed in the military until he was named by Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore , owner of the Maryland colony, to succeed the late Governor Samuel Ogle . In August 1753 he arrived in Maryland, where he took office from acting (interim) governor Benjamin Tasker . He held this office between 1753 and 1769. During this time, the Seven Years' War in North America fell . In the meantime he was appointed by the King as Commander in Chief of the British Armed Forces in the region. He only held this office for a short time. But he also continued to take part in the war and befriended, among others, the young George Washington , with whom he exchanged letters. Sharpe's tenure also marked the end of a long border dispute with the Province of Pennsylvania in 1767 . The new limit was determined using the Mason-Dixon line established at the time . After the end of the Seven Years' War, Sharpe, the British laws unpopular with the colonists, such as B. represented the Stamp Act , which was also rejected by Maryland. During his final years as governor, the first, still tentative, omen of the coming American Revolution appeared .

Horatio Sharpe privately built the luxurious Whitehall mansion outside Annapolis and ran cattle and horse breeding. In 1769 Horatio Sharpe was succeeded as Governor by Robert Eden, 1st Baronet . He stayed in Maryland until 1773, where he lived in his Whitehall mansion . Then he traveled to England for family reasons after the death of a brother. He planned to return to Maryland soon. But that didn't happen. He subsequently stayed in England permanently. In 1780 he was asked to return to America to submit his claims to the new American administration. But he did not comply, since he had either long since sold his property or bequeathed it to his confidante and former secretary, John Ridout. Horatio Sharpe died on October 9, 1790 in Herefordshire, England. At this point the colonial era in Maryland and the other 12 former British colonies in North America had long since come to an end.

Web links

• Sharpe in A Colonial Governor in Maryland

• Horatio Sharpe in the database of Find a Grave (English)