Posted on: Columbia County NY. Query Forum Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/gc/USA/NY/Columbia/11839 Surname: VAN HOESEN, SHARP, SMITH, BABIN, BAYLES ------------------------- This old letter written on parchment paper was just recently found by a family member. It describes the Garrett van Hoesen Sharp family of Columbia co., New York. It was written by his daughter May Sharp born about 1868 to her nephew Russell Sharp born in 1908. We believe the letter was written around 1918, can anyone make a connection with this family? "For Russell Sharp, my nephew: History of Garrett Van Hosen Sharp. My father Garrett v.h. Sharp was born in Kinderhook on the Hudson River July 10, 1818. His grandfather came here from Holland, he was one of the oldest colonist to settle along the Mohawk Valley. His parents came to Kinderhook where they had a farm adjoining the farm of Martin van Buren who was one of our Presidents of the USA. They had a large family; 4 boys and 4 girls...Garrett was the youngest boy. His father John Sharp owned a ferry across the Hudson to a place called Fishkill Landing. The farmhouse was built of Cobblestone. His father sold the farm and built a hotel also made of Cobblestone in Kinderhook where the family lived for many years. I have been there with my father when I was a little girl and saw the hotel and ferry houses and the cemetery where his parents were buried. After his parents died a older brother sold the ferry line to the government which he had no right to do until the younger children were of age. My father had a older sister living in Newburg, New York who was married. My father took care of his youngest sister who was the same age as you are now and lived with his older sister and family in Newburg and worked in a factory and sent his little sister to school and paid for their board. He was 15 years old and that younger sister was always the best loved aunt. His sister married a fine man who owned a very fine farm in Wolcott, New York. My father married my mother in Newburg. She was a very fine women who was a teacher and who wrote poetry and stories for magazines. She wrote short stories for a paper called the Saturday Night published once a week, now known to us as the Saturday Evening Post. She died when I was a small baby, only a few days old....you know my sister Lottie, your Aunt Lottie, she was like a mother to me, always, and I never missed my real mother. I had 4 brothers and two sisters, George was 25 years old and Maggie was 20 years old when I was born. There was John, Harry and Will, Lottie and Maggie who I scarcely remember. I must of been about 4 yers old when she died in Wapperingers Falls, New York. Then we moved to Wolcott where my father's two sisters and one brother lived. I was about 15 years old when your father came to visit us in Wolcott. Then we moved to good old Chicago and I guess you and Lillian known the rest of the History of the Sharp family from then on. You were a darling little boy. Aunty May, (to) my favorite nephew."