Ashfield: Darwin Dwight Sears
05/15/2009 17:51
Ahira Sears was the son of Roland (or Rowland) Sears, who settled in Ashfield in 1772. Rowland and the other farmers along Cape Street in the south part of town were all from Yarmouth. They all had large families, and the winter school in that district had “seventy-five scholars” attending. Of Rowland’s eight children, Ahira was the only one to stay in town, so he inherited the family farm. According to the town history, “he lived and died on the old place.” (1)
Ahira was born in 1783, and married Aurora Griffith (b. 1791, Haddam CT) in 1815. In 1816, Ahira Sears served on the Ashfield School Committee. (2) There’s no other information available on Ahira; so I’m left to assume that his responsibility for the Ashfield schools corresponded with an interest in subjects like the sciences covered by Darwin in his writings. In this sense, Ahira Sears is a great example of a very regular person who decided to name his son Darwin.
Darwin Dwight Sears left little record of his life. So far, I’ve not been able to find anything about him beyond the basics. The Ashfield Vital Records shows an 1842 marriage to Huldah J. Thomas of Cummington. (3) I have a note that he died in 1845, however, they may have had children in Cummington. I’ll have to check there.
1. Erastus Ranney Ellis, Biographical Sketches of Richard Ellis, the first settler of Ashfield, Mass., and His Descendants, 1888, p. 393.
2. Frederick G. Howes, History of the Town of Ashfield, 1910, p. 393.
3. Vital Records of Ashfield Masschusetts, to the Year 1850, 1942
