Edward
Savery
Sharpless

EDWARD SAVERY SHARPLESS practiced law in Camden during the 1910s and 1920s. He was the nephew of Casper T. Sharpless, who with his brother Harvey, had operated a coal business at 12th and Federal Streets beginning in the late 1870s.   

From
South Jersey: A History 1624-1924

EDWARD SAVERY SHARPLESS, practicing lawyer of Camden, New Jersey, solicitor of Moorestown Township, Burlington County, New Jersey, and one of the authorities on real estate titles in the locality, was born at Moorestown on July 26, 1885. His parents were Eli and Esther A. (Engle) Sharpless. His father was a farmer, and lived on the old family homestead between Moorestown and Palmyra, he having been born at Goshen, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He traced back to John Sharpless, of Wybunbury, Cheshire, England, who sailed from Liverpool on June 14, 1682, and landed on "John' Sharpless Rock," Chester, Pennsylvania, and bought land from William Penn, near Chester. He was converted a Quaker, and died on his farm near Chester in 1685. The Sharpless family have their complete family genealogy, concluding with Edward S. and his children.

Edward Savery Sharpless attended Moorestown Friends' Academy from 1891 to 1902 and then went to Westtown Friends' Boarding School from 1902 to 1906, and then for one year to the Drexel Institute Day School, where he took the course in Commerce and Finance. He entered the service of the West Jersey Title Company, of Camden, New Jersey, and remained with it for one and a half years as bookkeeper and search order clerk (1907-09). Then for two years he was a law student in the office of Horace F. Nixon, and in the fall of 1910 entered the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1912, but did not graduate. Instead he secured employment in the office of Gray & Archer, of Camden, and was admitted to the bar on March 20, 1912. He became counselor­at-law on July 14, 1916, and engaged in building and loan, mortgages, real estate, Orphans' Court and title law practice. He is a director in the Cape May County Title and Trust Com­pany, and solicitor of the Excelsior Building and Loan Company. He was on the local advisory board to the Draft Board of Chester Township during the World War.

Until he was eighteen years of age Mr. Sharpless' residence was on the old Sharpless homestead near Moorestown, New Jersey, where he was born. He still keeps up his connection with agriculture, and since 1922 has been a member of the New Jersey State Grange. He belongs to the State and County Bar associations, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Moorestown Field Club. Mr. Sharpless, like his father, is an Orthodox Friend, belonging to the Chester Preparatory Meeting, the Haddonfield and Salem Quarterly Meeting and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

Mr. Sharpless was married, at Westgrove, Chester County, Pennsylvania, on May 29, 1915, to Ruth Martin Palmer, born in Westgrove on February 5, 1889, and daughter of Henry and Phoebe (Hoopes) Palmer, who are both still living in Westgrove. The Sharpless children are: 1. Alice Hoopes, born March 8, 1916. 2. Edward Savery, Jr., born January 9, 1918. 3. Mary Louise, born June 5, 1919. 4. Palmer Martin, born May 31, 1922. .