George Earl Church

Colonel George Earl Church (December 7, 1835 – January 4, 1910), was an American civil engineer and geographer, known for being an explorer of South America.

Early life Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, his father was Richard Church, a direct descendant of Benjamin Church, while his mother's side was traced to a daughter of Edward Winslow, a passenger on board the Mayflower. After the death of his father, aged 7 he and his mother moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where he was schooled for seven years as a civil engineer. and commanding officer of the 11th Rhode Island Infantry from February 11 until July 13, 1863, commanding the regiment at the Siege of Suffolk.

After his military service, he was appointed chief engineer for the Fall River railway extension of Providence, Warren, and Bristol Railway.

Appointed United States commissioner to report on Ecuador in 1880, he then advised on railway projects in Argentina in 1889, and was then appointed United States commissioner to Costa Rica in 1895, to report on its debt and railways, with the possibility of improvements to the banana industry.

Later life in London This friendship lead him to live most of the last 30 years of his life in London, England, where Church became a vice-president of the Royal Geographical Society, the first non-British citizen to become a Fellow of the Society, and the first non-British citizen to be elected to the council.

Church was the namesake of the Madeira-Mamoré Railroad's No. 12 locomotive, Coronel Church, a 4-4-0 designed by Baldwin Locomotive Works that derailed soon after its first run in 1878. Thought lost to the Brazilian rainforest, the locomotive was rediscovered decades later and refurbished; it now sits on static display at the Madeira-Mamoré Railroad Museum in Porto Velho. The story of Coronel Church was the inspiration for Duke the Lost Engine, the 25th book of the Rev. W. Awdry's Railway Series, as well as the book's 1994 television adaptation.