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All we know of George Sharrock, son of James Sharrock and Jane Everard, is
that he was born c. 1792, almost certainly in Peekskill, Westchester County,
New York, and was still alive on 16 May 1826, when his late father’s will
was probated in Ohio. Thus he lived long enough to raise a family, but
there is no record of this.
George Sharrock does not otherwise appear in the records of Ohio. I
pursued the hypothesis that he was living in Peekskill, having returned to
his boyhood home, if he ever went to Ohio at all; and that the Sharrocks
of Atlantic County, New Jersey are descendants of George Sharrock.
Fragmentary evidence points in this direction.
(1) On the Mormon website there is one subsequent record of the Sharrock
family in Peekskill. A woman named Evie Sharrock, born in Peekskill,
Westchester, New York, married William Henry Smith of Leedsville
Pleasantville, Atlantic County, New Jersey, on 9 February 1868, in
Manhattan, New York. Her father’s name was George Sharrock, and her
mother’s name was Sarah Gent. William Smith is among the most common of
names. But the Mormon website does contain a birth record for a William H.
Smith, son of William B. Smith and Mary Smith, at Great Egg Harbor,
Atlantic, New Jersey, on 7 January 1845. A review of the census records
for Egg Harbor Township, Atlantic, New Jersey positively identifies him as
William Henry Smith. In the 1850 census he is identified as William H.
Smith, age 5. In the 1860 census he is identified as Henry Smith, age 15.
(2) George Sharrock (born c. 1792) had a sister named Polly Sharrock, who
was born at Peekskill on 13 May 1797, died there on 26 September 1799, and
was buried at St. Peter’s in Vancortlandtville, Westchester County, New
York. (Source: www.geocities.com/sharrocksearch/photo1.html) According to
the History Department at the Field Library in Peekskill, there are no birth
records or marriage records from St. Peter’s Church in Vancortlandtville.
But there are cemetery records, in which the historian found a listing for
a James Sharrock, who died on 25 November 1811. He would have to be an
infant son of George Sharrock, the only grown child of James Sherrick and
Jane Everard who did not remove to Ohio. We know that the rest of the
family were no longer living in Peekskill at this time, because three of
their children, Timothy, Benjamin, and Phebe, all of whom are buried in
Ohio, were already married, in Ohio, between 1805 and 1809.
The cemetery records for St. Peter’s in Vancortlandville (the now Hillside
Cemetery) are also available through the Mormon Family History Library
Catalog, which contains the following entry and URL (web page address):
Item 8 St. Peter's, VanCortlandtville, near Peekskill, Westchester County,
New York
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/filmhitlistframe.asp?
display=filmhitlist&filmno=860298&first=undefined&last=undefined#
THE SHARROCKS OF ATLANTIC COUNTY, NEW JERSEY
The first appearance of the name Sharrock, by any spelling, in the United
States census records for New Jersey, is in the 1830 census for Egg Harbor
Township, then in Gloucester County, New Jersey. The listing is rather
curious. The name is “Isaac A. Shark,” and he is listed along with
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