Sharper was enslaved successively by Joseph Hill, Sarah Hill, Nathaniel Hill, and Captain James Littlefield. He declared his intention of marriage to Hannah Simonds, an Indigenous woman in 1742.

Joseph Hill "had three slaves, Sharper, Plato, and the "negro boy Tom." In his will, he gave the first and the last to his wife, Plato to his son Nathaniel, and to the church and the minister each ten pounds." - Bourne, p. 356

In his 1742 will, Joseph Hill left "my Negro Boy Tom" to his wife Sarah. He also left to Sarah "the service of my Negro man Sharpe ... to be for her use during her Widowhood. He left "my Negro man Plato" to his son Nathaniel, and also "after ye term is Ended which my Negro Sharper is to serve my Wife, my Will is that the said Negro shall be ye servant of my said Son Nathaniel."

The 1743 probate abstract states: "1 Negro man named Sharper at £37/10/0, a Negro named Plato at £37/10/0, a Negro boy named Tom at £20." An additional abstract record from 1750 states: "Legacies ment[ion] relations: Sarah Hill, wid, who receives Negro boy and Negro man named Will, Nathaniel Hill, s[on], receives a Negro Man."

"Sharper Negro Servant to Joseph Hill Esqr and Hannah Simonds Indian woman their intention of marriage was Entered with me the fifth day of March 1742/3."

Whereas Capt James Littlefield is said to have enslaved four individuals (Scipio, Sharper, Dinah and Tom) with the same names as six of the people enslaved earlier by Joseph Hill, the assumption here is that these were the same people.

Remich wrote that Hannah Simonds and Sharper were living in the Ridge Community, some 50 years after their marriage. "Cooper" John Mitchell lived on what is now High St. in Kennebunk. "A short distance below Mitchell's, on the south side of the road and perhaps an eighth of a mile therefrom, commences a slight elevation of land which continues for a distance of one-fourth of a mile or more. This has been known for many years as 'N... Ridge.' It derives its name from the fact that between the years 1790 and 1800, about a dozen blacks, who had been held as slaves by citizens of Wells, were emancipated, erected huts and became permanent residents of this ridge, which had probably been granted to them by the town of Wells. Here were Tom and Phiilis(1), Sharper(2), and Hannah Simon, Primas and the younger Phillis, Salem and Peg, Cato, Dinah and others." - Remich, p. 108

Bibliography:

York County Registry of Probate

Maine Probate Abstracts Vol I 1687-1775 - John Eldridge Frost (1991)

The History of Wells and Kennebunk from the Earliest Settlement to the Year 1820 - by Edward Bourne (1875)

Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921

History of Kennebunk from its Earliest Settlement to 1890 - by Daniel Remich (1911)