The New York Times/1925/12/14/Eleonora Sears, Walking to Boston on Wager, Goes 4 Miles from Providence in 45 Minutes
Eleonora Sears, Walking to Boston on Wager, Goes 4 Miles from Providence in 45 Minutes
PROVIDENCE, R. I., Monday Dec. 14 (AP).—Miss Eleonora Sears, well-known in Boston society, began to walk from Providence to Boston soon after 1 o'clock this morning, on a wager that she could cover the distance by foot in 14 hours.
She reached Pawtucket, a distance of almost four miles, at 1:45 o'clock, having made the distance at better than five miles an hour. [The distance from Providence to Boston is about 45 miles.]
Roger Cutler and Albert Hinckley, both of Boston, accompanied Miss Sears.
Before her start she explained that the wager had been made more than a year ago and that it stipulated that the walk should be made in the Autumn and the distance traveled in fifteen hours. She started once before to try to win the wager, but was forced to abandon the walk by a blizzard.
Miss Sears had planned to start from the Biltmore Hotel here, but changed her plans at the last minute and took a cab to the residence of HOward O. Sturges, 177 Power Street, and began her walk from there immediately.
Both the man accompanying Miss Sears announced their intention of walking with her as far as they could and then riding in a beach wagon, which is following the pedestrians.
Newspaper men are the only other companions of Miss Sears.
Miss Sears is known as an expert tennis player and horsewoman.
She has previously demonstrated that she can maintain a three-mile-an-hour stride. In the spring of 1912 she walked 109 miles, from Burlingame to Del Monte, Cal., and maintained this average pace to win a wager of $200. She fainted at the end of the journey but said this was because of a guideboard which she misread as indicating that she had eight miles more to go.