Author: Oliver, Isabella
Biography:
OLIVER, Isabella (1771-1843: ancestry.com)
The contents of her only book provide most of what is known about her up to 1805; local history fills out the rest. She was born on the family's estate in East Pennsborough Township PA (later renamed Silver Spring Township) to Mary (Buchanan) and James Oliver. Her father, described as "a mathematician," died when she was fourteen and she had only "a common English education." She composed in her head (generally in couplets) and had someone else write her poems down, "not being a ready writer herself"--to use the words of the local minister, Robert Davidson, in the letter "To the Editor" that introduces her collection and vouches for her piety. The book was published by subscription with an enormous subscription list. In 1812 she married Alexander Sharp, a widower of 55 with six children. They lived in Newville PA, where he died in 1824. She is not known to have published again and remained in Newville for the rest of her life. (ancestry.com 20 May 2020; R. D. "To the Editor" in Oliver, Poems on Various Subjects; "Isabella Oliver" in the Gardner Encyclopedia of the Cumberland County History Society, gardnerlibrary.org/encyclopedia 20 May 2020) HJ