Tappan Adney

C. Ted Behne’s interest in Tappan Adney began when he attended a birchbark canoe-building class. After 30 years of working as a writer and editor, he agreed to take on the task of completing Wheaton’s book on Tappan Adney. His articles on the birchbark canoe and Tappan Adney appeared in Native Peoples Magazine, Prairies North, and Wooden Boat Magazine, and he edited The Travel Journals of Tappan Adney Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. James W. Wheaton’s interest in Tappan Adney began with Wheaton’s wife, Joan Adney Dragon, the granddaughter of Tappan Adney. He completed the first draft of the Adney biography before passing it on to Ted Behne. Although an electrical engineer by trade, his passion for genealogy, history, and writing led to him serving as president of the Hingham Historical Society (Hingham, MA). His transcription and annotation of the letters and journals of Dr. Charles Brackett — a distant relative —— was published as Surgeon on Horseback. Keith Helmuth is the publisher and managing editor of Chapel Street Editions. He is the author of Tracking Down Ecological Guidance and Tappan Adney and the Heritage of the St. John River Valley. He lives in Woodstock, New Brunswick.

“Tappan Adney is acknowledged as the foremost canoe scholar of all time. Now the rest of his extraordinary life is told in this superb and comprehensive biography. It details his remarkable accomplishments in a wide range of pursuits: canoe building, art, ornithology, heraldry, and the study of Indigenous culture and language.”