Thomas C. Sharp

Thomas Coke Sharp (September 25, 1818 – April 9, 1894) was a prominent opponent of Joseph Smith and the Latter Day Saints in Illinois in the 1840s. Sharp promoted his anti-Mormon views largely through the Warsaw Signal newspaper, of which he was the owner, editor, and publisher. Sharp was one of five defendants tried and acquitted of the murders of Smith and his brother Hyrum.

Sharp was born in Mount Holly Township, New Jersey, the son of prominent Methodist preacher Solomon Sharp. He attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and was admitted to the legal bar of Cumberland County, Illinois in April 1840. However, Sharp was partially deaf, which made it difficult for him to function in courtrooms. He gave up his Illinois legal practice after a few months.

Sharp moved to Warsaw, Illinois in September 1840. Approximately 18 months earlier, Latter Day Saints had begun to arrive in the same county and settle in the town of Commerce, which by 1840 had been renamed Nauvoo. In November, Sharp and a business partner purchased a Warsaw newspaper entitled Western World, which they renamed Warsaw Signal in 1841. Sharp used the paper to promote his opposition to the Mormon presence in Hancock County.

Within a few months, "Old Tom Sharp," as he was called, had become a strong opponent of the Latter Day Saints. Sharp and some associates formed the Anti-Mormon Party to oppose Mormon influences in Hancock County. In 1841, Joseph Smith noted in his journal that Sharp "devoted his entire time to slandering, to lying against and misrepresenting the Latter-day Saints." Sharp also opposed non-Mormons who assisted or were sympathetic to the Latter Day Saints, dubbing them "Jack Mormons". Due to financial losses, Sharp was forced to sell the Signal to its original owner in 1842.

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