REV. ARTHUR
ELLIOT SEARS
Wrights Station
Santa Cruz Mountains
Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: POTTER, HAWKINS, DeFRANCE,
Rev. Arthur Elliot Sears, son of Edward and Jemima (Root) Sears, was born at Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati, Ohio, June 6, 1823. His father was a native of Massachusetts, and his mother of Connecticut. After their marriage his parents settled in Vermont, and then in New York. From New York they removed first to Indiana, and then to Ohio, where the father died, June 10, 1831. His mother afterward married Mathias Potter, who died in Milford, Ohio. She removed to Missouri, and became a member of her son’s family, and removed with him to Oregon, where she died August 30, 1876. She was the mother of eight children, of whom Arthur, the subject of this sketch, is the youngest living. He lived eight years in Hamilton County, and after that in Clermont County, Ohio. He was educated in Cincinnati, where he attended Woodward College. In the fall of 1845 he went to Missouri and joined the Missouri Conference; the next year, the Methodist Episcopal Church South. He was a traveling minister in that Conference nearly seventeen years. In 1862 he emigrated to Oregon, and was transferred to the Pacific Conference, and took work in Oregon, where he remained twelve years. He was Presiding Elder six years, and served as preacher three years on another charge. He was agent of Corvallis College, a State agricultural institution under the management of the Columbia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. In 1874 he removed to Colorado, and there had charge of the entire work for one year; the next year the work was divided and he was continued on the Denver District, when his health broke down, and he was compelled to leave the State. He then came to the Pacific Coast, and in the spring of 1878 settled in the Santa Cruz Mountains, near Wrights Station, on his present place, which he styles the “Sunshine Ranch.” Here he has devoted a part of his time to preaching, as a local preacher. His ranch contains about sixty acres, of which about twenty are under cultivation. He has about 600 prunes, embracing the different varieties, some from ten to fifteen years old, and 300 plums of different varieties, 80 cherries, twenty years old, besides a family orchard. He has about seven acres in vines, all table grapes. This is one of the oldest vineyards in the mountains. The ranch was purchased from Lyman J. Burrell. Four acres of this vineyard, in 1887, yielded $1,300, after all expenses were paid.
He was married in
April, 1847, at Shelbyville, Missouri, to Julia A. Hawkins. She died in
Carrollton, Missouri, in May, 1859. She was the mother of five children, three
of whom are living. Mr. Sears was married again in January, 1860, to Eliza E.
De France, in Milan, Sullivan County, Missouri, and by her had one son. The
first children are: Mary C., Laura R., and Arthur L. The two former are
married. William A., by the second marriage, is now married, and principal of a
school in Contra Costa County.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 300
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
Proofread by Betty Vickroy
SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHY PROJECT