Captain Cyrus Sears was born in 1831 in West Yarmouth, the son of Odlin and Thankful Sears. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed on the ship Leland commanded by his uncle, Christopher Lewis of West Yarmouth. He rose rapidly through the ranks and, at the age of twenty six, he was in command of the ship Orissa, so fast and with such a spread of canvas that she was known as “Legs and Arms.” She was one of the first ships to carry ice from Boston to Calcutta. After a number of voyages to China and India, she was lost in a terrible winter gale in January 1857, off Nauset. The weather was such that it took Captain Sears three days just to report the loss to the Boston owners.

Cyrus married Martha Russell Baker of Yarmouth in 1857. Apparently a romantic, on the vest he wore at his wedding, he enscribed his name with his wife’s in ink, over his heart.

Captain Sears was known for his navigational expertise, charting and mapping the northwest coast of North America, where some areas still bear the names he gave them. He was also an expert on the soundings and currents of the Atlantic ocean and was consulted by Lieutenant Matthew Maury at the time of the laying of the first transatlantic cable in the 1850s.

His various adventures included being entertained by the Czar of Russia and escaping Malayan and Chinese pirates. In his younger days, while acting as first officer of the ship Sheffield, under the command of Captain Joshua Sears of East Dennis, he was left in command while, in the port of Kronstadt, Captain Joshua Sears journeyed to St. Petersburg. When it was learned that the Czar (likely Nicholas I) was going to visit the port, all the ships put out flags, all except for the Sheffield, which had its flags placed in “stops”, something new at the time. When the Czar approached the ship, Cyrus Sears pulled the cord opening the stops and the ship was suddenly ablaze with flags. This greatly pleased the Czar, who came on board and marveled at other new things which were shown to him. The next day Cyrus Sears was invited to come to Peterhof as a guest of the Czar, where a fine lunch was served, and wonderful fountains played to entertain them.

What the *Sheffield* may have looked like in Kronstadt.

He made numerous voyages in command of such ships as Augustus, Magenta, Visurgis and Pocahontas to places such as Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Shanghai, Fuzhou and Hong Kong. On one such voyage, around Cape Horn to Vancouver and Puget Sound, he brought back to the Crystal Palace Exposition in London, England, a complete collection of furs and minerals, along with a spar of Douglas fir, 175 feet long and perfect in shape. Being too late to serve as a flagstaff for the Exposition building, it was put up at Frogmore and was later transferred to Kew Gardens.

The Sears home in Ashby, where they lived from 1860-1874.

Captain Sears joined the Navy at the beginning of the Civil War and was assigned to the East Coast Blockading Squadron, under Rear Admiral Bailey, where he was in command of the gunboats Clyde and Honeysuckle and the man-of-war Dale.

After his Naval service, Captain Sears went back to merchant ships and assumed command of the clipper Herald of the Morning, completing several record passages around Cape Horn.

Cyrus Sears, left, with members of the Naval Veterans Association.

Eventually, after thirty two years at sea, he retired and moved from his home in Ashby, Massachusetts, to Baltimore, where he became Port Captain and for a time Consul for Cuba. He died in Baltimore in 1914 at the age of 82, leaving his wife Martha, and two daughters, M. Isabel, wife of George H. Hunneman of Boston, and Annie Russell Sears.

At his death, the following poem by Lizzie Clark Hardy was found in his pocket and was read at his funeral:

         The Unknown Shore
Some time at eve when the tide is low
I shall slip my mooring and sail away,
With no response to the friendly hail
Of kindred craft in the busy bay.
In the silent hush of the twilight pale,
When the night stoops down to embrace the day,
And the voices call in the water’s flow-
Some time at eve when the tide is low
I shall slip my mooring and sail away.

Through purple shadows that darkly trail
O’er the ebbing tide of the Unknown Sea,
I shall fare me away with a dip of sail
And a ripple of waters to tell the tale
Of a lonely voyager sailing away
To Mystic Isles, where at anchor lay
The craft of those who have sailed before
O’er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore.

A few who have watched me sail away
Will miss my craft from the busy bay;
Some friendly barks that were anchored near
Some loving souls that my heart felt dear
In silent sorrow will drop a tear.
But I shall have peacefully furled my sail
In moorings sheltered from storm and gale,
And greeted the friends who have sailed before
O’er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore.

Researched and written by William Painter.

See Capt. Sears’s wedding vest during She Said Yes, an exhibit of vintage wedding gowns, through June 30, 2024