George Earl Church

George Earl Church was elected to our membership less than two years ago, when he was already seventy-two. He was born in Massachusetts, educated in Rhode Island, of which state his ancestors were earliest settlers, and by extensive travel, being an engineer by vocation and an explorer by avocation. He was on the upper Amazon almost in boyhood, served as volunteer throughout the Civil War and in Mexico, retiring as colonel and brevet brigadier; was a war correspondent and journalist, and then, partly as engineer, partly as explorer, and sometimes as diplomate, he spent the rest of his active life in Central and South America. He was a collector of books also, gathering a professional and scientific library vying in size with many public collections. He was a voluminous writer of specialized monographs, and conducted engineering works of great magnitude. Such a man, widely travelled, well-informed, naturally genial, could not fail to have many friends, as he did, on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a member of four clubs and of several learned societies, being president of one, and was in general sympathetic with the highest activities of men.

William Milligan Sloane
1910 Century Association Yearbook