Calab Sharp (c1729-1799), or Sharp Calab as he was also known for much of his life, was born in about 1729. Of African and Indigenous descent, his mother was “Deborah Calup an Indian Woman” baptized by the Reverend Jonathan Ashley of Deerfield in 1741.

Enslaved by Colonel Oliver Partridge of Hatfield, Massachusetts, Calab served in King George’s War (1744-1748.) His name frequently appeared in an account book of Colonel William Williams when Williams operated a store and military commissary in Deerfield. By November 1751, Calab was enslaved by Colonel Williams, who purchased from Ebenezer Arms “a Pair of Pumps [shoes] for Sharp Caleb.”

Sharp reenlisted during the French and Indian War (1754-1763); it is possible his emancipation may have been connected with his militia service in this final colonial conflict. In December 1756, Elijah Williams still referred in his Deerfield store accounts to Calab Sharp as “Sharp Wms Negro.” Subsequent entries suggest he was a free man by January 1757, when he began making purchases and payments on his own account as “Sharp Calab” and “Calab Sharp”.

Sharp was among the earliest settlers of the part of Deerfield that became the town Conway in 1767. His account book is preserved at the Jones Library in Amherst, MA. A rare survival, the ledger confirms that Calab was a skilled millwright and businessman who built, maintained, fabricated parts, and operated water-powered mills. The Massachusetts tax valuation of 1771 listed him as half owner in a Conway mill. 

Calab Sharp was about 44 years old when he married Elisabeth Abel of Ashfield in 1773, and the couple had several children. Conway vital records noted the death of “Caleb Sharp a black man” aged 70, of “consumption” (likely tuberculosis) in 1799.