DR. ROBERT EDWARDS CARTER STEARNS died
at Los Angeles, Cal. July 27, in his eighty-third
year. He was a native of Boston,
Mass., a son of Charles Stearns, and was born
February 1, 1827. He was educated in the
public schools, followed by a course of
mercantile training, and from his earliest
years evinced a deep love of nature, fostered
by his father, with whom similar tastes led to
a degree of comradeship in rambles and hunting
expeditions which he always remembered
with appreciation. The boy had an unusual
artistic ability, and, though his early avocations
were services in a bank and on a farm,
when only twenty-two years of age he painted
a panorama of the Hudson River from the
mouth of the Mohawk to Fort William,
which he exhibited with much success. He
turned his attention to mining, explored the
coal fields of southern Indiana, and in 1854
was appointed resident agent of several copper
mines in northern Michigan, on Lake Superior.
In 1858 he went to California, where he
became a partner in the large printing establishment
of a brother-in-law of his wife, in
San Francisco. This firm published the
Pacific Methodist, a weekly religious paper,
and in the troubled times preceding the civil
war the reverend editor of this journal was
obliged to visit the east. Stearns was requested
to fill this place during his absence.
The fate of California hung in the balance,
many of the immigrants from the southern
states urged independence for that territory
when hostilities broke out. Stearns took the
responsibility of making his paper an enthusiastic
advocate of the union cause, and to
this call and the eloquence of Thomas Starr
King, old Californians believed the decision of
the people to stand by the Union in that struggle
was due in no small degree. Through the
influence, of Justice Field, Stearns was appointed
deputy clerk of the supreme court of
California in 1862, a post which he resigned
in the following year to accept the secretaryship
of the State Board of Harbor Commissioners,
which he was obliged to resign some
years, later on account of ill health. Coming
to the east, he made one of a party, comprising
besides himself the late Dr. William Stimpson
and Col. Ezekiel Jewett, for the exploration of
the invertebrate fauna of southwestern
Florida, during which large collections were
made for the Smithsonian Institution. He
returned to California, and in 1874 was elected
secretary of the University of California, being
the business executive of that institution
under the presidency of the late Dr. Daniel C.
Gilman. He served in this capacity for eight
years with great approval, and, when ill
health again obliged him to retire from service,
the university as expressive of their
sense of his services to the cause of education
in California, and in recognition of his scientific
attainments, conferred upon him the degree
of doctor of philosophy. Returning to
the east after the death of Mrs. Stearns, he
was enggaged in researches for the U. S. Fish
Commission in 1882, was appointed paleontologist
to the U. S. Geological Survey by Major
Powell in 1884, and assistant curator of mollusks
in the National Museum by Professor
Baird. His collection of mollusca was acquired
by the museum. Age and infirmity obliged
him to return to the more genial climate
of California in 1892, where he settled in Los
Angeles, continuing, as his strength permitted,
his researches into the malacology of the Pacific
coast. He married March 28, 1850, Mary
Anne Libby, daughter of Oliver Libby, of Boston,
and is survived by a daughter.
Dr. Stearns was an earnest student of mollusks
from boyhood; his early experience led
him to interest himself in horticulture and
landscape gardening, and his ability in this
line is attested by the beauty of the university
grounds at Berkeley, which were developed
under his superintendence. His knowledge of
the Pacific coast mollusca was profound, and a
long list of papers on this topic and on the
shells of Florida was the result. He also contributed
many papers on various branches of
horticulture and gardening to the California
periodicals devoted to this subject. He was an
enthusiastic supporter of the Californiia
Academy of Sciences in its early days, and,
after the earthquake of 1868, when disaster
threatened the society, he, with Professor J. D.
Whitney and a few other friends, stood between
it and dissolution. He was a member of
numerous scientific societies at home and
abroad, and of the Sons of the Revolution.
Dr. Stearns was a man of sanguine temperament,
with a lively sense of humor and
high moral character. His reading was wide,
his learning never obtrusive, his interest in
art, literature and all good causes, intense.
He was a staunch friend and, for a righteous
object, ever ready to sacrifice his own material
interests. His services to Californian science
will keep his memory green.
Wm. H. Dall
August 27, 1909