Among the ASCSA’s most dedicated supporters in its early years were Mr. and Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears of Boston. Sears had inherited a large fortune from his father and pursued a career in Boston real estate, but he also had many personal interests, particularly music and archaeology. His first contribution to archaeology, in 1896, was purchasing the library of the late archaeologist Ernest Curtius (noted for the original excavation of Olympia), which he donated to the library at Yale, his alma mater. In 1898, about the time of the inception of the ASCSA’s Corinth Excavations, Sears and his wife donated $1,000 to the School.
From 1896 to 1900 their son J. Montgomery Sears Jr. (“Monty”) was a student at Harvard. He had studied the Greek language for five years, as many did at that time. His record in Greek (as in nearly all his other classes) was poor, which must have been of much concern to his parents. He took some months from his studies at Harvard to study in Athens at the ASCSA, and after graduating from Harvard, he spent the next academic year at the School.
The School had 16 students at this time, considered a “happy condition.” In Athens Monty evidently put up at the Hotel Grande Bretagne, still a five-star hotel on Constitution Square. However, he spent much of his time at excavations at Oeniadae and Corinth. He evidently did apply himself and became much involved in the work. It appears that his parents financed the specific projects, as a report at the time said the Oeniadae work was “carried out at the expense of two members of the school, Dr. L.L. Forman and J. Montgomery Sears Jr.”
In November 1900 Monty wrote home describing a trip from Athens to Arcadia with two companions, Mr. Hardy and Mr. Richardson (of the faculty), which took several days. This letter is reprinted in its entirety below.
A Letter Home
From JM Sears Jr. to his mother in Boston, sent from the Hotel Grande-Bretagne, Athens (courtesy Sarah M. Sears Archive):
Athens Wed. Nov. 21, 1900
Dear Mamma
I am not quite sure whether I wrote you or Papa last, but as I believe my last one to him, you are now to receive a splendid epistle. We, namely Mr. Hardy, Mr. Richardson and myself returned home from Arcadia night before last after a most successful and interesting trip. We left here on Wednesday last and in spite of threatening weather pushed on by train to Trifolitza where we were welcomed by a perfect deluge of rain. We spent the night there and it rained so hard the [sic] Mr. Richardson and I who shared the same roomed [sic] discussed during the night whether we had not better return to Athens at once. However in the morning it cleared and we started out in a carriage across the plain towards Mantinea, which we inspected and having eaten a frugal lunch consisting of chocolate we went on to Leviddi. We walked most of the way as the road was so muddy that our three horses could scarcely pull along the carriage. We arrived in Leviddi about three thirty and getting some kind of a meal out of fried eggs and some canned ham we had brought, started to look for rooms, which we finally discovered in the house of a rather decent old fellow. Note this. There is no hotel in the town. The fact that we had brought our own beds, of course helped a good deal so that we had a comfortable night. Next morning, we took to mules. Three to ride, one for luggage, + two muleteers costing us the munificent sum of four dollars a day. In the morning we went over to Orchomenos, scaled the Acropolis, which by the way is the highest in Greece being over 2000 ft, and got a magnificent view from there. Starting on we at last arrived at Phenia, without having had any meal in between, at half past five! Phenia is a hole, nothing else will fittingly describe it. We got a filthy room, with a fire in it, also rats which walked over you at night, and having eaten more fried eggs went to sleep about eight oclock for lack of anything else to do for they scarcely even have lights in Phenia.
Well when we awoke next morning we discovered to our horror that it was raining, and we there in Phenia two days from the nearest even approach to civilization. After some deliberation we decided to start, which we did in the pouring rain. It rained for about an hour or so and then for some reason or other stopped, and the rest of our trip, except that the higher mountains were covered with clouds, was wonderfully fine.
We wound up and up over the woody sides of Mt. Kaathis [?] until we finally got to the top of the pass 4700 feet about [sic] the sea. From there we descended a gorge which really had luxuriant vegetation until we arrived at Zaruchla a town even worse than Phenia, so poor that they didn’t even have coffee. Really I have never anywhere scene [sic] such squalor + filth as in some of those villages in Arcadia. We pushed on from there however and soon arrived at Lolo, a town on the river Styx, at about one oclock. Here we picked out some lodgings and proceeded on foot, up the valley of the Styx to where to [sic] falls 800 feet perpendicularly from near the summit of Mt. Keluros. Unfortunately the lack of rain + snow during the summer had dried of [sic] the falls but the gorge was magnificent, in fact its wildness and grandeur was the thing that made the Greeks picture Hades as like it. We returned to Lolo for the night and played dummy whist by the light of the one wick of a whale oil lamp.
Going to bed at nine was the natural result of this, and in consequence of three nights rather long sleep, we rose at five thirty and got started well before sunrise up towards the last pass between us and Kalavrita. It took us two hours and a half to reach the top which is over 5500 ft high, and from there the view was simply magnificent. We could see all the northern + north western part of the Peloponnesus and the entire length as well as the other side of the Gulf of Corinth, while directly on our left and only about 3000 ft above us was the snow covered top of Keluros. It really was fine in spite of the way I have written this.
We arrived in that beggarly town of Kalavrita about two and had to stay there all night as no train went until next morning. We had quite a time for Mr. Richardson was careless + forgot to stipulate for prices in advance so that we had an awful row that night and another in the morning.
The train which left at ten in the morning went down that same gorge which we all thought so fine when I went to Megasfielion [?] last year. It was as fine as every [sic] and we went by down to Diakofto where we had a slight lunch and caught the Athens train which was one hour and a half late before it got to Athens at nine o’clock.
Your and Papa’s letters I received next morning and am deeply grieved to hear that things have not be [sic] running smoothly in Southboro, and also that Aunt Margaret has been indisposed. By the way I got a letter from her this morning for which your [sic] will kindly thank her from me, as I do not expect to answer it for a day or so.
Now I am back here, I do not expect to go away again unless it be to go up to Tanagra to try and get some figurines for you. The only obstacle in the way of it is that I should have to stay there at least a week, in houses that you would not even walk through. Mr. Richardson gives his first lecture tomorrow on Greek sculpture and I shall attend of course. I doubt whether I shall go to anything else in the way of lectures except Dörffeldt’s [Wilhelm Doerpfeld, of the German Archaeological Institute] on the Acropolis, which come later. I shall spend my time looking up three topics sculpture, vases, + coins, and possibly figurines. Also I may possibly take Powell + go over to Oiniadae over in Arcanania + excavate a little but I am not sure. This will fill up the time pretty well until Jan. 20, which I have thought of as a good date for starting to Egypt. I am going to take Powell along and I hope it will do him good for he is looking very poorly as a result of having been nearly starved over in Euboea. Many thanks for all those wishes for my birthday. I should like to be at home for it but—. Well good bye give my love to all
Yours very affectionately,
Montgomery
Postscript
Montgomery returned home in 1901 and pursued law. In 1902 and 1904 he found time to complete two articles about the excavations in Greece. The first was “The Lechaeum Road and the Propylaea at Corinth,” published in The Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, and the second was “Oeniadae: VI. The Ship-Sheds,” published in the American Journal of Archaeology. He died in a car crash at only age 28.
In later years Monty’s mother Sarah made many contributions as memorials to her son, including some to the ASCSA. From 1910 through 1916 (when the School suspended operations due to World War I), she made annual gifts and in 1920 she was a major donor toward a new grand piano for the School’s social rooms and in 1925 she donated a new Ford car to the dig in progress at that time. From 1924–1927 she also served as a School Trustee.
