Background
John Thomas was born on May 1, 1843 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the son of Thomas G. and Anna Maria (McNulty) Scharf.
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John Thomas was born on May 1, 1843 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the son of Thomas G. and Anna Maria (McNulty) Scharf.
Scharf received elementary education in St. Peter's parish school and in Calvert Hall.
At the age of sixteen, after studies John Thomas Scharf entered the lumber business of his father, but he soon left it for the more congenial work of fighting for the South in the Civil War. In July 1861 he enlisted in the 1th Maryland Artillery. With that unit he went through several campaigns, receiving wounds at Cedar Mountain, at the second battle of Bull Run, and at Chancellorsville.
While recovering from the last of these he was commissioned a midshipman in the Confederate navy in 1863. In that branch of the service he participated in some minor engagements, later to be unduly magnified in his history of the Confederate navy, but the lack of activity by the winter of 1864 caused him to resign with the intention of transferring back to the army. Later he was sent by the war department on a mission to Canada. He had hardly crossed the Potomac into Maryland, when he was captured. The end of the war prevented his trial as a spy, and in September 1865 he was pardoned by President Johnson.
After another experience in his father's business he practised law for about four years, served on the editorial staffs of three Baltimore papers, the Baltimore News, Sunday Telegram, and Morning Herald, was elected in 1877 a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, and held the office of commissioner of the land office from 1884 to 1892.
An appointment as special inspector of Chinese immigration at the port of New York took him to that city in 1893, and there he remained to practise law four years later when a Republican administration came into power. During these years he devoted himself constantly to the writing of local history. The results appeared in articles in the Baltimore Sun, in magazines, and in many heavy books. They won for him recognition as an authority on Maryland history.
Nearly all his writings were devoted to local history, and his books suffer from the inclusion of biographies of living men and other devices to make them sell. The one outstanding exception is the History of Maryland (3 vols. , 1879), which in spite of his many prejudices is the most comprehensive treatment of the subject and one which historians still consult. While less significant, The Chronicles of Baltimore (1874), in which he anticipated McMaster in the use of newspapers as a main source for writing history, and his History of the Confederate States Navy (1887) are of value to the student of history.
At one time he was preparing to write the authorized biography of Jefferson Davis. His use of some of the material in a newspaper article angered Davis, and, perhaps for that reason, the work was never completed.
Most of the purely local records, such as rent rolls and muster rolls, which were probably acquired while he was commissioner of the land office, have since been deposited with the Maryland Historical Society.
His died in 1898 in New York City.
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
(This book, "History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884. 2", by Sc...)
Scharf was a Democrat, clearly articulated his strong pro-South perspective and prejudice.
Scharf was an active member of the Maryland Historical Society.
On December 2, 1869, Scharf was married to Mary McDougall of Baltimore, who with three children survived him.