My Genealogy Hound

HIRIAN SEARS was a native of Sullivan county, New York, born, March 9th, 1811, and is a son of William and Thirsa (Sears) Sears. His father was a native of the southeastern part of Connecticut, where he owned a farm, commanded a company of militia and voted the Republican ticket. His death occurred after his emigration to Sullivan county, after he had passed the eighty-fifth year of his life.

Hirian Sears, the subject, passed the first sixteen years of his life in Madison county, New York, where he attended school in the winter time and performed the duties of a farmer boy in summer time. At the age of twenty-one, he engaged in school teaching, which he used as a stepping-stone to further his purposes and assist him in getting a fair start upon his life’s career. In 1833 he came to the town of Gerry, farmed in the summer and taught school in the winter and thus continued to alternate farming and teaching for a period of ten years, finally purchasing the farm which is now occupied by himself and family. His business now is that of farming and dairying, which latter business claims most of his attention. He has a herd of twenty-two Jersey cows and makes about five thousand pounds of creamery butter per annum. Mr. Sears takes quite an active interest in politics, in which he is a republican, has held the office of school superintendent, assessor, road commissioner and also belongs to the Grange. Religiously he is a member of the Congregational church and is regarded as conservatively orthodox.

On January 3rd, 1840, Mr. Sears married Lourilla Shepardson, daughter of Reuben Shepardson of the town of Gerry. He married a second time, in December, 1850, to Lucretia Bush of Busti. Upon the death of his second wife, he married a third time, March 25th, 1852, to Mary A. Gates, daughter of Ezra Gates of Lebanon, Madison county, New York. He is the father of one child, a daughter — Ophelia L., now living in Norfolk, Virginia.