The Sharping Spring Lot

by John Harvey

In this column last week I mentioned the Sharping Spring lot.  As I began to pick up bits of information and trace it back in various ways, I found that it is mentioned in many of the deeds for house lots on the west and south sides of the City of Monticello.

When the County Commissioners chose the site for the city in 1808, they chose it because there were at least eight springs within 500 yards of the Square.  Each of these springs seems to have been used more or less for a particular purpose by the early citizens (brick yards, tanning, washing clothes, etc)  The springs were each named for the person who owned the lot they were located on.

When the town was laid out some of these lots were already recognized and they became key lots from which other house lots were surveyed.  The Sharping Spring lot and the Bartlett Spring #2 lot were said to be where the ladies of the town gathered to do their weekly laundering.  One of my fathers friends once told me that his father had told him when he was a child about 1850 that the hill on both sides of the branch were covered with clothes lines where the women hung their washing to dry.

The springs were used as the principal source of water until the late 1860's when many of the citizens began digging wells.  The city water works did not become a reality until about 1920.

The waters from these springs and from Homer Jordan's lake on Persons Street form the headwaters of the  Town Branch.  This branch which begins at Jackson Road and parallels Honeysuckle Road was the closest fishing branch to town years ago.  Many a town resident did his first fishing there. 

Shortly after World War I, this area off Church Street became known as the "Boy Scout Lot" when the local Boy Scouts were allowed to build a hut on the Bartlett Spring #1 lot which has frontage on Church Street.

By 1922 the Sharping Spring lot had shrunk to a little less than half an acre.  It was owned jointly by the Minter, Jordan and Zachary families.  At this time, Parks Harvey bought the spring Lot and two and half lots, fronting on Forsyth Street.

In 1929, he added the Bartlett Spring lot on Church Street.  On one of the two half lots was a three room house in which the young widower "batched it" until he remarried in 1923.  A new room was added before the new bridge moved in and I was born in the new room in September, 1924.  The house was increased to six rooms in 1936 after the other children were born.

The Sharping spring lot was a beautiful lot even though it had no frontage on a street.  There were five of the biggest pine trees I have ever seen.  Foresters would today call them "virgin pines".  There were four huge water oaks, there was little or no brush on the floor under the trees.  When the pines were cut in 1939 my father saw fit to record the diameter of the stumps in his diary.  They were recorded as 39 in., 42 in., 35 in., 47 in., and 38 in. 

He had a bench that he kept behind the barn and every evening before sunset he would go watch the birds and animals that came out to play.  There were squirrels, all kinds of birds in the trees, raccoons, opossums, and I can still recall the first wild fox I ever saw.

The spring came out from under the roots of a sweet gum and ran about fifteen yards before it entered the branch.  That was the best bait digging area I have ever seen.  We carried out buckets of bait to go fishing

The history of Sharping Spring lot, as you can see, goes back a long way.

Additional Comments:
Transcribed by Suzanne Forte (suzanneforte@bellsouth.net) April 2005,  from copies of articles contained in the Monticello News. There articles were prepared by Mr. 
John Harvey and published in this newspaper during the 1970's and 1980's time frame. Some were under the title "Jasper Reflections", others "Bicentennial Bits".
Permission has been granted by Mr. Harvey for use of these very valuable and informative articles.

Copies of articles provided by Benny Hawthorne.