George Luther Stearns
| George Luther Stearns | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
January 8, 1809 Medford, Massachusetts |
| Died | April 9, 1867 (aged 58) New York City, New York |
| Occupation | merchant |
George Luther Stearns (January 8, 1809 – April 9, 1867) was an American industrialist and merchant, as well as an abolitionist and a noted recruiter of blacks for the Union Army during the American Civil War.
George L. Stearns was born in Medford, Massachusetts on January 8, 1809, the eldest son and second child of Luther and Mary Hall Stearns. He was a member of the early Stearns family, whose ancestor, Isaac Sterne, arrived in Salem on June 12, 1630 from Suffolk County, England, crossing the ocean with Governor Winthrop and Sir Richard Saltonstall. Isaac moved to Watertown on the Charles River where he died in 1671. The American Stearns family grew, moving northward and westward, working as farmers, teachers and clergymen.
George Luther Stearns' father, Dr. Luther Stearns, was born in February 17, 1770, the eldest of five children born to Captain Josiah Stearns, a soldier in the war of American Independence who commanded a company of 50 men from Lunenburg, MA. Luther Stearns entered Dartmouth College at age seventeen but graduated from Harvard in 1791. He worked as a tutor at Harvard and eventually studied medicine, becoming an obstetrician after receiving an honorary degree from Harvard in 1811. Luther married Mary Hall of Brattleboro, VT when she was 16 on December 29, 1799. They moved to Medford, MA to be nearer her relatives, eventually having three children: Elizabeth Hall Stearns, George Luther Stearns and Henry Laurens Stearns (named after the American Ambassador of that name who was distantly related to the family). Dr. Stearns later opened a celebrated preparatory school for boys with students from the South and West Indies.
Dr. Stearns died of pneumonia on April 27, 1820, when his son George Luther was just nine years old. In order to earn money, young George sometimes tended the locks on the Middlesex Canal in town. At the age of 15, he entered the work force to support his family. In early life he engaged in the business of ship-chandlery, and after a prosperous career undertook the manufacture of sheet and pipe-lead, doing business in Boston and residing in Medford. He was married to Mary Elizabeth Preston on October 12, 1843, by Rev. Frederick H. Hedge. They met through acquaintances which included her father Warren Preston, a probate judge in Norridgewock, Maine and Mrs. Lydia Maria Child an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, opponent of American expansionism, Indian rights activist, novelist, and journalist and Unitarian.
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