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MAJOR ALFRED F. SEARS.
To a great majority business activity indicates the concentration of effort
in a single place. The profession to which Major Alfred F. Sears turned his
attention, however, called him to various sections not only of the United States but also of Mexico and various South American countries. As a civil engineer his labors were of inestimable value in promoting railway and business projects that have been of the utmost worth in developing the different sections in which he has labored. He has come to an honored old age, for he has traveled life's journey for eighty-four years ? years in which mental development has been a continuous force in his life, the precious prize of keen intellect remaining his to the present day. Advanced scientific attainments have gained him prominence in his chosen field of labor, and with a mind receptive and retentive, he has also gleaned in his travels knowledge of far-reaching purport and interest concerning the lands he has visited and the peoples among whom he has lived. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, November lO, 1826, and is descended from Pilgrim Revolutionary stock. His great-grandfather, Zachariah Sears, of Yarmouth, Cape Cod, was a lieutenant of militia in 1776, although then seventy-two years of age. His grandfather, Joseph Henry Sears, when but fourteen years of age, joined the regiment commanded by Colonel Nat Freeman, of Yarmouth, and served with the American troops in Rhode Island. His father, Zebina Sears, inherited the family passion for liberty and in 1816 commanded the brigantine Neptune, a cruiser in the service of the states of La Plata, then engaged in their war for independence from Spain. He made three successful voyages between New Orleans and Buenos Aires with men, arms and ammunition for the patriots, but was finally captured by a Spanish frigate which he fought until his own ship was sunk. He was taken to Spain for trial and sent for life to the penal colony of Melilla, on the coast of Morocco, from which he at length made his escape by aid of brother Masons, and eventually reached Boston.
Major Alfred F. Sears, the fourth in a family of seven children, pursued his
education in the public schools of his native city, where he won a Franklin
medal for scholarship on graduation from the Winthrop school in 1841. He then
entered the English High school and was graduated with the class of 1844. The
following year was spent in a mercantile counting house, and another year in an architect's office, but preferring outdoor life he took up civil engineering, for which he was well adapted. He had pursued a special course in mathematics from Master Sherwin, of the high school, and this proved a good foundation for further preparation for his chosen profession.
On the 8th of June, 1846, he, entered upon active business connection with
the profession at the Boston water-works', under the distinguished civil engineer, E. S. Chesbrough. He was afterward connected with the Cheshire Railroad of New Hampshire and subsequently became resident engineer of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, under the late Benjamin H. Latrobe.
At the outbreak of the Civil war Major Sears was acting as surveyor of
Newark, New Jersey. He resigned in June of that year to raise a company
which was afterward enrolled as Company E, First New York Volunteer Engineers, and in October was sent to Hilton Head, in the expeditionary corps for the capture of Forts Beauregard and Walker. After about a year Captain Sears
was stationed with his company at Hilton Head in hard service and also in the
initial work of investing Fort Pulaski. In that connection he located and built the battery in the rear of Pulaski on Jones island in the Savannah river, known as Fort Vulcan, thereby cutting off all communication by steamer between >the fort and the city of Savannah. He also destroyed three-quarters of a mile of telegraph line between these points. He was next sent to Florida on important service and following his return rejoined his company. After the battle of James island on the i6th of June, 1862, he was ordered to Fort Clinch, Florida, to prepare the fort for defense against land attacks. Shortly afterward he came north to confer with General Totten, the chief engineer of the army, and during the visit, in October, 1862, through special dispensation of the grand lodge he was made a Mason in Kane Lodge of New York city. A week later he returned to Florida where he remained until December, 1865 ? six months after the muster-out of his regiment ? when he returned to Newark, New Jersey, having in the meantime been promoted to the rank of major. He was the only volunteer officer of engineers who was permitted to report directly to the chief engineer of the army at Washington.
Following his return to the north, Major Sears was employed as assistant
engineer of the Newark (New Jersey) water works, being engaged chiefly in
building the Belleville reservoir. Shortly afterward he was elected chief engineer of the Newark & New York Railroad, located that line and also designed and located the first elevated railroad in the United States, passing over the New Jersey Railroad and to the city limits, over twenty blocks. When that road passed into the hands of the New York Central Railroad he was superceded by the chief engineer of that line. Many of the positions to which he has been called in later years have come to him by reason of his power as a linguist, for he is versed in Italian, Portuguese, French and Spanish. He was engaged by an American company to visit Costa Rica where he made preliminary surveys across the continent from the Gulf of Nicoya to Puerto Limon on the Carribean sea, and on his return to the United States was selected as the chief engineer of a railroad in Central New York which he left in 1869 to take charge of the Atlantic division of the Costa Rica Railroad from Puerto Limon to the division line between the oceans. In the following year the Costa Rican government became bankrupt and Major Sears was invited by the late Henry Meiggs, railway king of South America, to visit Peru where he made a contract with the Peruvian government by which he entered the national corps of engineers of which he was a member until 1879. He lived in Peru for seven years, during which period he was appointed inspector of railroads for the government in the north of the republic. He was also chief engineer of the irrigation commission for devising a system of water works and sewerage for the cities of Callao, Paita and Piura. Finally he became chief engineer of the Chimbote, Huaraz and Reouay Railroad, where he remained until the war with Chili had bankrupted Peru.
As his son had settled in Portland, Major Sears, came to Oregon in 1879.
Upon his arrival here he was appointed umpire engineer of the Oregonian rail-
way which was then being constructed for a Scotch company of Dundee. Because of his familiarity with the Spanish language, however, he was soon invited to Mexico to become assistant general manager of the Mexican Central
Railroad Company, from which position he was called a year later by the Mexican government to take charge as general manager of the Tehuantepec Inter-oceanic Railway. After three months' work, finding the government bankrupt and having received only one month's pay, he became disgusted and returned to Portland, where he has since resided, although frequently visiting the east, Europe and South America.
On again taking up his abode in Portland Major Sears began the practice
of his profession here and also soon became a prolific periodical writer and
lecturer, appearing several times before the University of the City of New
York, the American National Geographical Association of New York, the
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and the Long Island Historical So-
ciety, while on many occasions he has delivered lectures and addresses in Port
land. In 1 88 1 he lectured in Portland on the Iron and Railroads of the World, giving an account of an iron street-car he had built in New York in 1856 for the Sixth avenue line and a sixty-passenger car for a New Jersey line to Hackensack, and he said at that time that iron street passenger cars had been in successful use on English roads in India and "they will be in use eventually the world over."
In 1 88 1 he presented to the people of Portland, in the columns of the Ore-
gonian, The Law of Commercial Geography, which has since created discus-
sions in the commercial and scientific worlds, and has been presented in lec-
tures and papers to the geographical societies of the country and the American Society of Civil Engineers, exciting antagonism until it has become accepted as immutable law in the world's economy, namely : It being understood that commerce does not consist in shipping freight from a port, but is simply tlie exchange of a country's productions for the supplies of the producer, "the commercial metropolis of a region will be that point nearest the producer which can be reached by a deep sea ship," On the 4th of November, 1900, he published in the Oregonian a letter drawn out by the visit of Mr. Mellen, president of the Northern Pacific Railroad, in which he delivered himself on notions antagonizing his position; the letter concluded with this prophecy: "The Northern Pacific Railroad will be forced into Portland by the most direct route possible. This is simply its helpless fate, on which Portland may sleep. The law of commerce, as I have stated it, is the inexorable, immutable law without exception in the world's economy." In a communication published in the Oregonian on the 12th of May, 1883, he suggested to the port of Portland board as follows : "I can think of no port so analogous in conditions to Portland as that of Glasgow, Scotland." After stating the conditions the letter continued: "If our river is to be kept open it must be done by a board like the Clyde trust, working in the interest of Portland and with her money." Shortly after this he was called to Mexico, but Ellis G. Hughes, who was associated in the Oregonian Railroad Company as attorney, of which Mr. Sears was engineer, took up the matter, visited the legislature and secured the charter for the present organization. This was the origin of the port of Portland commissioners.
In 1889 Major Sears, while engaged as chief engineer of the first electric
railway built in the northwest, was urged by the people of Peru to return to the region where he had made irrigation surveys and plans, a very promising concession being made him. He was also called by capitalists to England where a syndicate for the work was formed, but the plans were upset by the failure of the house of Barring Brothers, due to the repudiation by Argentina of her bonds held in England. He then recovered his concession from the English company and tried to organize a company in New York. He had just succeeded when, in August, 1894, the revolution broke out in Peru and the project was abandoned. At the request of eastern capitalists he again secured the concession in 1898 for a party who agreed to put up the necessary guarantee bond but who failed of execution. In the meantime he had expended all of his means in his devotion to an idea, suffering heavy losses in his confidence in unworthy men. He has since lived a retired life in Portland except for some activity in civic affairs.
On the 29th of January, 1850, Mr. Sears was married to Miss Augusta
Bassett, the youngest daughter of Paschall Bassett, of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and descended on both sides from Puritan ancestry. Her mother traced her ancestry directly to Mary Chilton, who was the first woman to land from the Mayflower. Unto Major Sears and his wife were born three children, of whom one reached maturity, Alfred F., Jr., who became a prominent lawyer and was on the bench in Oregon when he died, in 1907.
Major Sears is an honored member of various societies. He belongs to the
Sons of the American Revolution, the Loyal Legion, the Grand Army of the
Republic, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the National Association of Civil Engineers of Peru and is a corresponding member of the Geographical
Society of Lima, Peru.
One who knows Major Sears well has written of him: "He is essentially a
polite man, a gentleman in all that the term implies. The real gentleman must
possess a kindly nature, a heart bent upon goodness. The manners of Major
Sears would adorn any station. I have seen him when general manager of a
railroad go the entire length of a railway car to assist a poor Indian peasant woman in raising a car window with which she was struggling. This illustrates the quality of his nature. He is void of selfishness and has in an unusual degree the quality of thoughtfulness for others. He is inclined to diffidence and has been accused of super sensitiveness, yet is not slow to strenuously resist what he deems encroachment upon his rights or those of others in whom he is interested. One of his strongly marked qualities is his ability to win the confidence and the admiration of the humbler classes of both men and women, this frequently taking the form of an expression of admiration for intellectual predominance.
"Passing to a consideration of intellectual qualities, it may be said that
Major Sears is especially developed on the side of perception. Had he held
office in a parliamentary body he would have been distinguished, nay almost invincible in debate. He has cultivated an exceptionally pure rhetorical style, unique and forceful, rarely surpassed in beauty by men whose life is not devoted to literature. He has been throughout his life a student, more in the lines of science, sociology, philosophy and some branches of politics than in other fields of learning. His temperament is essentially radical, or more correctly, non-conservative. As might be deduced from the few traits delineated above, he has the very structure of the reformer and the philanthropist. The term philanthropist is used here with full appreciation of its meaning. He has been such in both theory and action. If the evidences of his work are not more numerous it is because of the conflicting demands of an exacting and laborious profession and business life which have prevented a constant abiding in one community. He may be said, in truth, through life to have loved his brother man."
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Bassett Family Association Database
- Deceased
d. Deceased