The man who made Moline (but not who you think!)
John Deere justifiably gets the headlines, but pioneer entrepreneur David B. Sears arguably had a more profound impact on the early development of the Quad Cities
As America expanded west in the early 19th Century, the Quad Cities region in the Upper Mississippi River Valley was the stage for many critical historical events; a place where many of those who would forever alter the path of our nation first rose to prominence.
The westernmost battle of the War of 1812 was fought at Credit Island in Davenport. Dred Scott lived in Rock Island years, the servant to an area doctor, before his freedom was revoked by the Supreme Court. A young Robert E. Lee surveyed the Rock Island Rapids. A young attorney named Abraham Lincoln represented railroad interests after the steamboat Effie Afton smashed into the first train bridge over the Mississippi River. Buffalo Bill Cody born and raised in Le Claire. A blacksmith from Vermont named John Deere moved his nascent plow making operation to Moline.
Absent from the list, however, is one of the most influential, industrious, and important of the region’s earliest white settlers: David B. Sears.
If not for Sears, Deere may not have accessed the power needed to supercharge his factories. Sears’ waterpower designs were employed from Minnesota to Texas, making him one of the most innovative dam designers of his day. He also helped build the first major boatyard on the Upper Mississippi, brought power to the Rock Island Arsenal, served as a quartermaster in the Civil War and once even sold a buffalo to PT Barnum.
Like many of the early settlers who pioneered this section of the river valley, Sears was part of the great western migration. Born in 1804, he saw his brother and two sisters drown in the Scioto River when his family fled New York state for Ohio during the War of 1812. In 1816, the family pushed further west, setting up a farmstead in Shawneetown, Illinois, near the banks of the Ohio River, where he lived before striking out on his own at age 17.
Even in his late teens, Sears showed the combination of entrepreneurship and ingenuity that would mark his life and career. At age 19 he married and embarked on a career trading up and down the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans, where he was among the youngest in the profession.
Sears’ first wife Melinda Stokes bore him six children but died tragically in 1833. He married his second wife, Delila Caldwell, shortly after and ended up having two more children with her.
In 1836 that Sears decided to leave farming. He sold a large herd of cattle, using the proceeds to purchase a small strip of land adjacent to Rock Island, where only three log cabins stood at the time.
Sears described this stretch of the river – where it runs east to west—in almost poetic terms, as reported in a 1915 edition of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society:
“He said afterwards that he found here excellent blue grass and prairie grass, abundance of good timber, building rock, limestone and sand, hills covered with a great assortment of wild fruit, berries and nuts, and underlaid with coal. The streams were filled with fish and every hollow tree was filled with honey.”
His ambitions for the area were not of the bucolic variety, however. Sears’ mind was on industry.
In 1838, he began construction of a brush dam between the Illinois shoreline and the east end of Rock Island. Shortly after, he added flumes and foundations for a sawmill, with an upper floor flour mill as well as an additional mill for carding wool.
The timber milled by Sears was critical for building the largest boatyard in the upper river valley, constructed by Captain John Holt. When the local timber ran out, Sears began milling wood from points further north, requiring him to obtain teams of oxen and other draft animals. One of those draft animals — a buffalo captured as a calf near Cedar Rapids – was subsequently sold to circus showman P.T. Barnum, according to the Illinois Historical Society report.
As Sears continued adding industrial buildings, including a foundry, around the original dam site, the burgeoning enterprise required more capital. Sears partnered with a pair of other early settlers, John W. Spencer and Spencer H. White.
By 1840, this partnership had established the largest flouring mill operating on the Mississippi north of St. Louis. A large shaft from the foundry was extended to a nearby furniture maker, and ultimately, extended again at the request of a young plow maker named John Deere. Without Sears’ power, it’s possible Deere may have never launched his agricultural empire.
The Civil War was a turning point in Sears’ life and fortunes. An anti-slavery Republican, Sears joined the Union Army and served in Gen. N.B. Buford of Rock Island’s 27th Illinois Infantry. Despite his honorable service, the Army did Sears little favor after the war, when it used eminent domain to acquire all of his property on Rock Island to expand the Arsenal.
“The appraisement of this property, including the mill, water-power, large warehouse and several residences, amounted to $153,000 (the equivalent of $2.85 million in today’s dollars), which was less than the improvements had cost him, but protests were of no avail and he was compelled to accept what had been awarded,” the Illinois Historical Society Journal reported.
While he was instrumental in the founding and initial flourishing of Moline, the loss of his land on the island compelled Sears to move his base of operations south, to a section of the Rock River between the cities of Rock Island and Milan.
Unincorporated or part of Rock Island now, that area was called the Town of Sears for many years. From that eponymous locale, he embarked on numerous dam building projects along the Rock River in Illinois as well as in Joplin, Missouri; Tama and Ottumwa, Iowa and Topeka, Kansas.
Sears worked until the day he died at age 80, and the IHS Journal noted: “His desire was granted, for he died from fatty degeneration of the heart in 1884, while seated in his office at the paper mill, in conversation with his superintendent, Mr. Elsworth, after a busy day, in which he had accomplished as much as the average man of forty, which in appearance he was.”
A Sears dam remains on the Rock River and John Deere still manufactures equipment less than a mile from the original brush dam. David B. Sears may not be as famous as some whose enterprises he made possible, but his mark is indelible on the history and industry of the Quad Cities region.
Author’s note: a version of this article was published in the March-April, 2023 edition of Big River Magazine.