METHUEN — A recent trip to Gettysburg, Pa. led to an incredible discovery for Joe Bella.
During that trip, he obtained an old photo of a Civil War soldier from Lawrence that he had tried to buy on eBay five years ago.
"I just happened to ask the guy behind the counter whether he had any Lawrence photos," said Bella, 63, of Methuen, secretary of the Lawrence Civil War Memorial Guard. "When I saw the photo, I almost fell on the floor. I didn't know who the soldier was, but recognized the face right away."
A copy of a Dec. 5, 1910 obituary for Col. William Sharrock was already among the exhibits Bella had collected on 2,200 Lawrence soldiers. But until he saw the photo in Gettysburg, he didn't know that it was a photo of Sharrock that he was outbid for on eBay back in April of 2004.
Bella was in Gettysburg along with a small group of the Lawrence Civil War Memorial Guard for the 146th Anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
The guard's vice president, Elizabeth Charlton; her husband, Sean Sweeney; their son, Morgan Sweeney, and board member Jacques Fournier all accompanied him on the weekend trip to the famous battlefield.
They marched in their Civil War outfits with other Union and Confederate regiments. More than 3,500 participated in the event.
"Every place I go, I ask if anyone has any Lawrence stuff to sell," Bella said.
The old photo he had bid $150 on five years ago cost him $201 at Ronn Palm's Museum of Civil War Images in Gettysburg — a fair price, he said, for the piece of history that will soon be returning to the Immigrant City.
Meanwhile, Bella has helped to rekindle the memory of one of the hundreds of Civil War soldiers buried at Lawrence's historic Bellevue Cemetery.
Sharrock's story was an amazing one, Bella said. His obituary described an accident that occurred on the Lawrence Common during a July 4th celebration in 1865, shortly after he had returned from the war.
"He was assisting in the firing of a salute on the common... He was ramming the cannon when a premature explosion occurred and when the smoke had cleared there lay William Sharrock with both arms blown off," the obituary reported.
"You have to marvel at what this guy accomplished after having overcome a tremendous handicap," Bella said. "This man must have been an inspiration. He did more with no arms than most people do with two."
The obituary notes that Sharrock ran a store for many years in the old transfer station of the horse-car railway company on Essex Street in Lawrence.
With the use of an artificial arm, he did his own bookkeeping and maintained correspondence for a stove business on Jackson Street.
"Later he did considerable work in water colors and surprised all who knew him by his feats despite his big handicap," the obituary recalled.
In just a few years, Bella has amassed photos of soldiers, their homes and gravestones, biographies, service records and other information about Methuen soldiers that fill two other binders. He's assembling another binder for people who lived in Lawrence, but served in units in other parts of the country.
Bella said his interest in Civil War history was sparked by his late friend Bob Poulin, a senior elections clerk for the city of Lawrence who was the guard's secretary when he died two years ago.
"He made me see the light of Lawrence history that was relatively ignored," Bella said. "And I felt compelled to join the group and toot its horn."
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