Sears, Lorenzo

Lorenzo Sears (1838-1916), professor of rhetoric and American literature, was born in Searsville, Massachusetts, on April 18, 1838. He graduated from Yale in 1861 and from the General Theological Seminary in New York in 1864. He was ordained a priest of the Episcopal Church in 1865, and served as pastor in churches in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, until 1885, when he gave up the ministry and became professor of rhetoric and English literature at the University of Vermont. He was appointed associate professor of rhetoric at Brown in 1890, promoted to professor of rhetoric and oratory in 1892, and named the first professor of American literature in 1895. He resigned in 1905 to devote himself to his writing. Among his works were American Literature in the Colonial and National Periods, published in 1902, and The Makers of American Literature, in 1905. He died in Providence on February 29, 1916. A tablet in his memory at St. Martin’s Church in Providence reads, “In memoriam Lorenzo Sears ... priest, educator, author, gentleman of the old school; interpreting the lives of the great with rare insight and masterly skill; endearing himself to all who knew him by his courtly grace and thoughtful kindness.”