Sears established his reputation as a privateer during the French and Indian War, commanding a vessel from 1758 until 1761, when he lost his ship.
[2] Born in July 1730 in West Brewster, Barnstable Massachusetts Bay Colony, the son of Joshua and Mary (Thacher) Sears.
[4] As a young boy he sold shellfish,[3] and by sixteen had begun apprenticing to the Captain of a New England coastal vessel.
[3] Sears and his fellow Sons of Liberty all gathered at a coffee house on October 31, 1765, the day before the Stamp Act was to take effect.
They ultimately resolved to enforce the opposition to the distribution of the stamps and formed an association to stop the importation of British goods until the act was rescinded.
[5] He was nicknamed "King Sears" by aristocrats who feared his power to mobilize people in the streets[5] and for his influential role in organizing and leading the New York mob.
[6] He was a most militant and influential agitator and earned a reputation for bravery and sought to limit the scope of Britain's authority in 1760.
[5] Another nickname that was bestowed upon him by British military engineer and cartographer John Montresor·, was the “Spawn of Liberty and Inquisition” which Montresor both passionately and derisively called him and his posse of vigilantes.
British Vice Admiral Samuel Graves lists Sears as the “most active leaders and agitators of the rebellion.
In 1766, Sears, John Lamb and three others formed a committee of correspondence to communicate with other Sons of Liberty groups in other provinces.
On January 19, 1770, the Battle of Golden Hill began when Sears took it upon himself to prevent a half dozen redcoats from posting broadsides at an outdoor market near the East River wharves, Sears seized the soldier fixing the paper by the collar and asked him what business he had to put up Libels against the inhabitants and carried him to the mayor.
Sears and his companions believed that the ruin of their commerce was inevitable if they did not succeed in preventing the sale of India Company tea in America.
Before the tea was to be sent to the colonies, Captain Sears and McDougall decided an opposition was needed and sought to unite all the Sons of Neptune and Liberty with the merchants and tea-smugglers.
Thus Sears and McDougall initiated the use of this distinctively American name to cover the identity of those who were ready to employ violence to block the operation of the Tea Act.
On November 20, 1775, Sears led a group of 80 citizens in apprehending Parson Seabury, Judge Fowler, and Lord Underhill.
[11] While some of the mob escorted the three prisoners to Connecticut,[11] ·November 23, 1775, Sears and his men rode into New York at high noon with bayonets fixed and shut down James Rivington's Gazetteer by taking all of the type from his office at the foot of Wall Street where a large crowd gathered outside the Merchants coffee shop to cheer the raiders as they marched out of town to the tune of Yankee Doodle .
He and other members of the Sons of Liberty won enough seats in the New York State Assembly in December, 1784 to enact a set of harsh anti-Loyalist laws.
[13] Sears died in October 1786 of fever and dysentery contracted in Batavia in the Dutch East Indies while on a great adventure to open American trade with China, where he would be buried on an island in Canton Harbor.