Jereboam Orville Beauchamp (pronounced /dʒɛrəˈboʊ.əm ˈɔrvɪl ˈbiːtʃəm/; September 6, 1802 – July 7, 1826) was an American lawyer who assassinated Kentucky legislator Solomon P. Sharp, an event known as the Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy. In 1821, Sharp was accused of fathering the illegitimate stillborn child of a woman named Anna Cooke. Sharp denied paternity of the child, and public opinion favored him. In 1824, Beauchamp married Cooke. During Sharp's ...
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Jereboam Orville Beauchamp (pronounced /dʒɛrəˈboʊ.əm ˈɔrvɪl ˈbiːtʃəm/; September 6, 1802 – July 7, 1826) was an American lawyer who assassinated Kentucky legislator Solomon P. Sharp, an event known as the Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy. In 1821, Sharp was accused of fathering the illegitimate stillborn child of a woman named Anna Cooke. Sharp denied paternity of the child, and public opinion favored him. In 1824, Beauchamp married Cooke. During Sharp's 1825 campaign for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives, the issue of Cooke's child was again raised, and handbills printed by Sharp's political opponents claimed he denied paternity based on the fact that the child was a mulatto, the child of a Cooke family slave. Whether Sharp actually made this claim has never been determined with certainty, but Beauchamp believed he had and swore to avenge his wife's honor. In the early morning of November 7, 1825, Beauchamp tricked Sharp into answering the door at Sharp's home in Frankfort and...
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