Sears lived in Wellsboro from 1844 until his death in 1890, and was the first to describe the Pine Creek Gorge. He also described a trip to what became Leonard Harrison State Park and the view west across the gorge to what became Colton Point State Park: after a buggy ride, he had to hike through tangles of fallen trees and branches, down ravines, and over banks for five hours. At last he reached "The Point", which he wrote was "the jutting terminus of a high ridge which not only commands a capital view of the opposite mountain, but also of the Pine Creek Valley, up and down for miles".