George Washington Sears

Nessmuk

Located in the courthouse square in Wellsboro, Tioga County is a Pennsylvania historical marker dedicated to George Washington Sears, who wrote under the pen name Nessmuk. The marker describes Sears as a poet, woodsman, outdoor writer, and pioneer conservationist.

He was born in Massachusetts December 2, 1821, and died at his home in Wellsboro May 1, 1890. At a young age, he took a liking to the outdoors, and it’s said Sears spent much of his time with the remnant of a tribe of Nepmug Indians living near his home. He took a fancy to their chief, Nessmuk.

Sears came to Wellsboro in 1848, preceding his father's family by several years. He learned the trade of a shoemaker, which he pursued when not enjoying the solitude of the forest. In his early years, Sears traveled all over the world, including three years on a whaling ship, before taking sick on board and being sent home.

He married Mariette Butler in 1857. One of their three children, Charles Rockwood Sears worked in his youth in the lumber camps of Pine Creek in northern Pennsylvania, and in the West. Later he prospected for gold in several western states, also penetrating into northwestern Canada. He was well-trained in practical geology and also studied astronomy.

When the call for 75,000 volunteers was made by President Lincoln during the Civil War, he was one of the first to respond and became a member of the original Bucktails regiment from the north woods of Pennsylvania. But meeting with an accident while in camp at Harrisburg, by which his right instep was broken, he was discharged and reluctantly returned home.

Sometime in the 1850’s he contributed to the Spirit of the Times, a serial romance under the nom de plume of Nessmuk, which was widely read and commented on. From that time on he became a regular correspondent and contributor to Forest and Stream, Outing, American Angler, and other magazines.

His outdoor travels, many in a canoe, were shared with readers who loved reading his stories.

In 1884 he published a small book under the name Nessmuk, entitled "Woodcraft," giving his experiences of fifty years in the woods, with instructions to hunters and fishermen on how to camp out and enjoy the sport. The book proved very popular with sportsmen and ran through several editions.

Sears shared this advice with his readers in the book.

“In a word, act coolly and rationally. So shall your outing be a delight in conception and the fulfillment thereof; while the memory of it shall come back to you in pleasant dreams, when legs and shoulders are too stiff and old for knapsack and rifle.

That is me. That is why I sit here tonight—with the north wind and sleet rattling the one window of my little den, writing what I hope younger and stronger men will like to take into the woods with them and read. Not that I am so very old. The youngsters are still not anxious to buck against the muzzle-loader in off-hand shooting. But, in common with a thousand other old graybeards, I feel that the fire, the fervor, the steel, that once carried me over the trail from dawn until dark, is dulled and deadened within me.”

Failing health, including malaria, finally took its toll and Sears died in 1890. Despite his wishes to be buried in the yard of his Wellsboro home, Sears was buried in the Wellsboro Cemetery in Tioga County. A stone carries a bronze tablet with his likeness, placed there through the efforts of Forest and Stream magazine. His wife Mariette Butler Sears, who died at the age of 95 in 1925, is buried beside him.