First Child Born In Town, He Said

Did you know? In October 1909 a doctor in Delphi, Indiana, wrote a letter about where he was born, and it ended up in Mount Union's history book.

Charles H. Welch was preparing his history of Mount Union, and Dr. W. F. Sharrer answered his letter on October 22, 1909. "Yes, I claim to be the first child born in Mount Union proper," Sharrer wrote. "I was born March 8, 1842 in the old stone house on the Canal, where my parents lived and kept a general store, in one end of it."

He was careful to call it a claim, and he added that this little history of his birth and parents was from memory. He told Welch he could use any part of the letter, and Welch printed it in his history under the heading "First Man Born in Town."

Sharrer wrote that his father, John Sharrer, was born near Shirleysburg in 1806 and moved to Mount Union in 1839 or 1840, where he kept a general store. When the canal was opened, the letter says, his father had several boats of his own running to Philadelphia, carrying the produce of Germany Valley and the surrounding country to market and bringing back the goods used in the store.

Checked 2026-10-30 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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