About Corbit-Sharp House
The Corbit-Sharp House, completed about 1774, is a National Historic Landmark and one of the principal properties of the Historic Odessa Foundation. Built for tanner and merchant William Corbit, the five-bay, twenty-two-room residence is an outstanding example of Philadelphia-Georgian architecture and remained in the Corbit family until preservationist H. Rodney Sharp acquired and restored it in the twentieth century. Its interpretation is unusually detailed because William Corbit’s 1818 household inventory survives, allowing rooms and furnishings to be understood in close historical context.
The house also has a documented Underground Railroad connection. In 1845, Mary Corbit sheltered a freedom seeker named Sam in the attic before he continued north to Philadelphia, a story that contributed to the property’s inclusion in the National Park Service Network to Freedom and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway. Visitors begin at the Historic Odessa Visitor Center in the former Odessa Bank at 201 Main Street, where tickets are issued and guided tours depart for the Corbit-Sharp House and other preserved buildings in the historic district.
