Edward Francis Searles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Francis Searles (July 4, 1841 — 1920) was an interior and architectural designer.

Searles was born on July 4, 1841, in Methuen, MA to Jesse Gould Searles (1805 - 1844) and Sarah Littlefield Searles. His father worked in a local cotton mill and operated a small farm.

In 1887 Searles married Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins, a widow, 22 years his senior, who was an heiress with among her other assets a one quarter owner of the Central Pacific Railroad resulting from her marriage to Mark Hopkins. After her somewhat mysterious death in 1891 Searles, at 50 years old, was left with his wife's vast real estate holdings in San Francisco, New York, Methuen, MA, and $21 million.

During the remainder if his life, he satisfied his love of architecture by building grand structures such as the Searles Castle in Windham, NH and a magnificent music hall in Methuen, MA [1].

He was also an environmentalist and would alter the construction course of a major stone wall so as to preserve a tree that he deemed important.