{"id":30385,"date":"2018-04-05T10:46:55","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T14:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=30385"},"modified":"2022-05-06T13:41:24","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T17:41:24","slug":"revolutionary-war-patriot-the-honorable-john-sparks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/revolutionary-war-patriot-the-honorable-john-sparks.html","title":{"rendered":"Revolutionary War Patriot: The Honorable John Sparks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While searching in GenealogyBank\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/explore\/newspapers\/all?utm_source=social&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=SM_Blog_txtlnk_2014_00&s_referrer=social&s_siteloc=blog&s_trackval=SM_Blog_txtlnk_2014_00&kbid=69919&pq=1&prebuy=no&intver=&CCPRODCODE=\">Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> recently, I found the obituary of a Revolutionary War patriot: the Honorable John Sparks (c. 1716-1802).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30387\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30387\" style=\"width: 457px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/doc\/newspapers\/image\/v2%3A11990F9AD58A1960%40GB3NEWS-11B314CEB78D0608%402379294-11B314CECB3A9E58\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30387\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/true-american-newspaper-0309-1802-john-sparks-obituary.png\" alt=\"An obituary for John Sparks, True American newspaper article 9 March 1802\" width=\"457\" height=\"454\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/true-american-newspaper-0309-1802-john-sparks-obituary.png 457w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/true-american-newspaper-0309-1802-john-sparks-obituary-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/true-american-newspaper-0309-1802-john-sparks-obituary-300x298.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 457px) 100vw, 457px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30387\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: GenealogyBank, True American (Trenton, New Jersey), 9 March 1802, page 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>According to his obituary:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cEarly in our revolutionary war, he took an active part against Great-Britain.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>His obituary adds the title \u201cEsq.\u201d \u2013 which means \u201cEsquire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Was he a lawyer?<\/p>\n<p>A quick check \u2013 he was and in fact he was a judge.<\/p>\n<p>His obituary also says he was an officer in his church:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201c\u2026his counsel and influence were always ready to promote the interest of Religion.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sparks\u2019 home, built in 1765, is still standing in Woodbury, New Jersey, and today is the location of the Gloucester County Historical Society.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30391\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30391\" style=\"width: 458px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/photo-0405-2018-john-sparks-home.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/photo-0405-2018-john-sparks-home.png\" alt=\"Photo: home of John Sparks in Woodbury, New Jersey\" width=\"458\" height=\"608\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/photo-0405-2018-john-sparks-home.png 458w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/photo-0405-2018-john-sparks-home-226x300.png 226w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 458px) 100vw, 458px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30391\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: home of John Sparks in Woodbury, New Jersey. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Thank you GenealogyBank!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An article by Thomas Jay Kemp about finding the obituary of a Revolutionary War patriot: the Honorable John Sparks (c. 1716-1802).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12557],"tags":[1902,12,2020],"class_list":["post-30385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-stories","tag-american-revolutionary-war","tag-genealogy","tag-newspaper-archives"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/illustration-0810-2016-washington-crossing-the-delaware-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30385"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84541,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30385\/revisions\/84541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}