SHARROCK, EVERARD

Everard & Amy Stevens Sharrock
Early Dallas County Settlers

The Grady Niblo Log Barn

The Grady Niblo Log Cabin

The following story tells how the little log cabin became known as the Grady Niblo Cabin.

The Sharrock Family In Dallas County
1845 - 1854

1845-1854
The Niblo cabin and other structures within the Dallas City limits in southwest Dallas County have become endangered, just because the land is changing hands and a housing development is being proposed. The Niblo family has owned this parcel of land since the 1930s and there have been several structures on the land all these years. The cabins/barn are some of, if not the oldest remaining structures from the 19th century still on its original site in Dallas County. Land records show this site to be the 320 acre E. Sharrock survey No. 1314 off dark Road. From the age of these cabins/barn these could have been what Everard Sharrock Jr. built while living on his Peter's Colony grant.

While researching the endangered cabins/barn some wonderful stories have been uncovered about the Sharrock Family in America. The first person found with this name came from England. James Sharrock (1750-1826) born in Liverpool had been pressed into service for King George III and sent to America to fight against the colonists. When he arrived he decided he would rather fight on the other side and joined the Colonial forces. After the American Revolution, he remained in America. He was not able to go back to England as deserters were being shot.

Living in New York in 1781 after the war, he met and married Jane Everard in 1785 and they eventually had eight children. James was admitted to the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in 1812 in Chillicothe, Ohio and in Steubenville, Ohio in 1813 and authorized to function as a Methodist Minister. They had moved to Guernsey County, Ohio between 1803 and 1808 and settled there.

James and Jane Everard Sharrock had three daughters and five sons, and the third son was Everard Sharrock (1793-1866). Everard had entered the War of 1812 serving as a private in Captain George Richardson's Co. 1st Reg. of DeLong's Ohio Militia. Everard Sr. came to Robertson County, Texas from Ohio in 1846 with his wife, Amy Stevens Sharrock ( -1848), whom he had married in 1813 and other members of this family. Amy and Everard had nine children all born in Ohio between 1814 and 1832. Here Amy died in 1848 and family lore she was buried at Five Mile Cemetery.
As family number 358 on the Federal Census for Dallas County in 1850 Everard is shown as having been born in New York, a 56 year old farmer with one son, David, 18 years old born in Ohio, still living with him. Four Members of the Sharrock family Everard Sr, James Sharrock (1817-1862), George Washington Sharrock (1832- ) all received Peters Colony land grants, in the southwest portion of what is now Dallas County.

Everard Sr. and other members of this large family left Texas in the mid 1850s to go California and eventually to Oregon where he died in 1866. Everard Jr. (1826-1913) and his wife Sarah Elizabeth Robbins (1828-1854) came with Everard Sr. and the other relatives and received a Peters Colony grant for 320 acres. One source says he came single the other source that he and Sarah had been married in 1845 in Ohio (this may be incorrect). In the 1850 census he is shown as the father of two children, both born in Texas, Amy Catherine two years old (1847-18 ) and George Alvey Sharrock, 6 months.(October 24, 1849 -1927). A third baby Charles Augustus Sharrock. was born in 1850 probably after the census was taken. This is who it is believe built the cabins and barns on his land that is between Dad Wisdom Road and Merrifield.

After hearing about California and the Gold Rush, even if everyone who went was not successful, some of this Dallas family decided to move to California. The trip from Dallas County to California was by way of a journey in 1853 to New Orleans, Louisiana where they joined other members of the family from Tower Hill, Illinois. They then secured passage on a ship to Cuba and then to Colon. They crossed the isthmus of Panama by foot and wagon overland to the Pacific Ocean and took a ship to San Francisco. They went by wagon to Toulumne County, California which is near Yosemite National Park. Here Sarah Elizabeth, the wife of Everard Jr, and their four year old son Charles Augustus died of the measles in 1854.

Everard Sr. and Amy Stevens Sharrock's daughter, Amy Ann (1828-1912) wife of Jeptha May
( 1820-1890) gave birth to twins, in California, a boy and a girl, who died in June 1853. This is the event that caused Everard Sr. and other members of the big family to return to San Francisco, and they then traveled up the coast by ship into the Columbia River and then down the
Willamette River to Oregon City. In 1854 all of the parties were granted donation land claims in Clackamas County, Oregon. Many members of the Sharrock family kept records and stories of the family and these are a wonderful way to learn about American History. The contact for much of this information has been Larry Kutner who lives in The Dalles, Oregon. Larry also mentioned that his mother Nova H. Sharrock was born in July 1915 in Berkley California. She was a premature baby (only 6 months) and was so small the nurse who assisted at that time put her wedding ring on the baby's tiny arm and it slid up to her elbow! The doctor covered her with Vaseline, wrapped her in a blanket, and he and the grandfather, George Edward Sharrock and Gerald Gibson a ten year old uncle put her in the car, drove to the ferry and went to the 1915 Worlds Fair. There was a building that had a new medical device called an incubator. She spent the first period of her life on public display in one of the incubators. In 2004, the Sharrock family are all over the United States and have a Web page. In a wonderful (out of print) book that was assembled in 1928 by Homer Eiler of Topeka, Kansas, much of this family information has been assembled. Great story of the Sharrock family who passed through Dallas
County in the 1850s!

Dallas City Council decided this should all be part of a thirty-one acre park along the edge of the escarpment donated by the developer. The structures are within this parcel of land and will now be protected from demolition.