John Sharp VI

John Sharp, first Bishop of the Twentieth Ward, Salt Lake City, Utah, was born Nov. 8, 1820, in the Devon ironworks, Scotland, and was sent into a coal pit to work when but eight years of age. In 1847 he converted to Mormonism while still engaged as a coal miner. John Sharp became a member of the church along with his two brothers, and in 1848, they left Scotland for America. They landed in New Orleans, came up the Mississippi river to St. Louis, Missouri, where they lived until the spring of 1850, and then took up their line of march for Salt Lake City.

The date of his arrival, August 28, 1850, makes John Sharp one of the earlier settlers of Utah. He first went to work in the Church quarry, getting out stone for the "Old Tabernacle" and Tithing Office, and next was made the superintendent of the quarry. Under his direction the stone was quarried for use in the various public works in the city, the foundation of the LDS Temple, and the massive wall around the Temple block. It must be understood that the quarrying and hauling of those huge blocks of granite was no indifferent undertaking. The Church quarry is eighteen miles from the city, and the rock had to be hauled by oxen.

In 1854 he was selected by Brigham Young as the Bishop of the Twentieth Ward in Salt Lake City. In 1864 Bishop Sharp was appointed assistant superintendent of the Salt Lake City Public Works, and when Pres. Daniel H. Wells went to England to take charge of the European mission, he became the acting superintendent until his return.

Recognizing his industry and ability, President Young invited him to become . In 1867 he became a subcontractor under Brigham Young on the Union Pacific railroad, as a chief subcontractor on the contract, particularly to be in charge of the bridge and tunnel work, where his experience in stone cutting would be most valuable. Under this contract, Sharp and Young did the heavy stone work of the bridge abutments, and the cutting of the tunnels of Weber canyon. In this work they employed from five to six hundred men, and the contract amounted to about a million dollars.

Bishop Sharp represented Brigham Young at the Golden Spike ceremony at Promontory in May 1869. When Union Pacific failed to pay the Mormons as it should for their work on the railroad. In the difficulties of the settlement between Brigham Young and the Union Pacific company, John Sharp, John Taylor and Joseph A. Young were chosen to go to Boston to negotiate a settlement of the issue. Success came when the Union Pacific directors, in the lack of the company's funds, the settlement included $600,000 worth of railroad material, iron and rolling stock, which was used in the construction of the Utah Central railway.

Sharp played a key part in construction of the Utah Central Railroad in 1869-70, became its superintendent in 1871, and its president in 1873. He was also named vice-president of the Utah Southern Railroad Company when that was organized in 1870. He went east as the purchasing agent for this company, and becoming extensively associated with the Union Pacific directors, was elected as a director of Union Pacific in 1875, which office he held till his death in Salt Lake City on December 23, 1891.

The Union Pacific incorporated a subsidiary known as the Nevada Pacific Railway Company on May 13, 1889, which then applied to the United States Land Office for a right-of-way across Nevada. This was granted, but before any construction commenced, the Nevada Pacific came under direct control of the Oregon Short Line & Utah Northern. Construction was first initiated on the line south of Milford during December 1889. John Sharp, a Mormon Bishop, was in charge of the project and H.M. McCartney was resident engineer.

Sharp's energies were devoted entirely to maintaining the work force required to reach construction goals, as the combination of a remote location and low wages made it difficult to attract labor. To add to his problems, on July 4, 1890, in true patriotic fervor, but over Sharp's objections, the Company's labor gangs deserted the camps en masse for the saloons and gambling halls of Culverwell, a settlement which later became Caliente.