William Lewis Sharkey (July 12, 1798 – March 30, 1873) was an American judge and politician from Mississippi. A staunch Unionist during the American Civil War, he opposed the 1861 declared secession of Mississippi from the United States. After the end of the war, President Andrew Johnson appointed Sharkey as provisional governor of Mississippi in 1865.
Biography
Early life
William Lewis Sharkey was born on July 12, 1798, near Mussel Shoals in Sumner County, Tennessee. He was the son of Patrick Sharkey, an Irish immigrant, and his wife, "the daughter of a German pioneer". He had two younger brothers, Jacob Rhodes Sharkey and James Elliott Sharkey. While he was serving as Consul, he swore in William R. King as Vice President of the United States on March 24, 1853. This, which was permitted by a special Act of Congress passed on March 2, was, to date, the only occasion that an American vice presidential oath of office or presidential oath of office has been administered on foreign soil. King, who was suffering from tuberculosis, would die on April 18 two days after he arrived at his home in Alabama.
A member of the Whig Party, Sharkey was vehemently opposed to the secession of Mississippi in 1861. Throughout the Civil War, he remained a staunch Southern Unionist and, according to one source, was "tolerated by his Confederate neighbors only because of his towering reputation as a jurist."
Governor Charles Clark appointed him in 1865 as a commissioner (along with William Yerger) to confer on behalf of the state with President Andrew Johnson. On June 13, 1865, Johnson appointed Sharkey the state's provisional governor. Sharkey left office with the election of Benjamin G. Humphreys in October.
Death
Sharkey died in Washington, D.C., in 1873. He is interred in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson, Mississippi.
Legacy
Sharkey County, Mississippi, located in the Mississippi Delta region, is named in his honor.
See also
- Hinds v. Brazealle
- List of justices of the Supreme Court of Mississippi