MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

The Carroll County Historical Society and Museum are pleased to offer these document resources online as the result of a project funded in large part by a Museums for America grant from the federal Institute for Museums and Library Services (IMLS). This coveted award was matched by funds from the Deer Creek Township Advisory Board, the Carroll County Community Foundation, the Carroll County Historical Society, and in-kind donations from consultants and volunteers. As a result, these important historic resources have been digitized and preserved.

• The Milroy Collection
• The John Curtis Odell Papers
• The Civil War Diaries of James and Jesse Sharp

The Milroy Collection

General Samuel Milroy was born in Pennsylvania and moved from Kentucky to Indiana in 1815 attending the Constitutional Convention in 1816. After nine years in the Legislature he removed to Carroll County which he was instrumental in organizing. He named and helped lay out the town of Delphi, Indiana, west of his cabin home. He was a major, colonel, and brigadier-general of the Indiana Militia during the War of 1812. A pioneer politician and lawmaker, Samuel Milroy was a friend of Andrew Jackson, Superintendent of the Land Office, and an Indian agent.

Among the documents to be found in the collection are deeds of property, handwritten journals, a letter from Andrew Jackson, and General Milroy's handwritten will. [Top] [Milroy Documents]

Odell Papers

A life-long resident of Carroll County, John Curtis Odell was a prominent attorney and historian. He was the son of early settlers, James and Sarah Hatfield Odell. John’s father James was a county commissioner, state representative and senator, clerk of Carroll Circuit Court, and one of the founders of the Old Settlers Association.

John Curtis Odell was born December 6, 1838 and died July 6, 1925. He was first married to Euphemia A. Noland in 1865, and she died October 18, 1866. He then married her sister Ruth Elizabeth Noland who lived September 27, 1840 until September 14, 1923. Their children were Charles Noland Odell, November 30, 1875-May 7, 1970, restaurant and hotel manager, and Ruth Josephine Odell, a school teacher who lived July 24, 1882-May 2, 1956. Neither was ever married. Twins Mary H. and Willie B. were born and died in 1874.

In addition to following the legal profession, John Odell was for forty years the secretary of the Old Settlers Association and recorded a significant amount of local history. He was for many years vice president of the Carroll County Historical Society. In 1916 he published the History of Carroll County, Indiana: Its People, Industries and Institutions, With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families. The volume was published by B. F. Bowen & Co. in Indianapolis, and is comprised of 679 pages of history and biography.

Included here are several of the manuscript stories and family histories from the Odell collection in the Museum as well as a sampling of some of the letters written to John Odell that have historical interest. [Top] [Odell Documents]

Sharp Diaries

James W. and Jesse K. Sharp were the sons of Samuel H. and Elizabeth McNitt Sharp and lived in Harrison Township, Cass County, IN, when they enlisted in the Civil War. They joined the Fifth Indiana Cavalry, 90th Rgt., Company K, at Logansport on August 5, 1862, and mustered at Indianapolis on September 8. They had lived with their parents and siblings and helped on the family farm. The parents had emigrated from Mifflin Co., PA. James was born December 30, 1835, in Indiana and Jesse early 1838.

After the War, James Wilson Sharp married Louisa Trimble at Mt. Vernon, OH, October 11, 1865. He later married Lucinda McCoy in Cass County on November 8, 1876, and then Malinda Williamson on May 18, 1882. In 1883, he moved to Carroll County, settling into a farm life near Camden. His fourth wife was Mary Nancy Kepner Gardner whom he married on July 11, 1903. James Sharp was also survived by children Cora Doyle and Roswell O. Sharp when he died October 21, 1914.[Top] [Sharp Documents]