M. T. (Moses Thurston) Runnels

M. T. Runnels, short for Moses Thurston Runnels, was an American author and minister born in 1830 and died in 1902. Contemporary library and archive records identify him as the author of A Genealogy of Runnels and Reynolds Families in America (1873) and History of Sanbornton, New Hampshire (published in 1881–1882), two substantial works centered on family history and local New England history.

His writing suggests a careful, documentary approach: one book gathers family lines and memorial notes across generations, while the other records the history and genealogies of Sanbornton, New Hampshire. Archive records also show him as Rev. M. T. Runnels, and a Dartmouth manuscript description places him in Sanbornton, where he wrote about the poverty of his parish in a letter to Dartmouth president Asa Dodge Smith.

For modern listeners and readers, Runnels is most interesting as a preserver of community memory. Rather than writing fiction or grand theory, he focused on names, places, kinship, and town history—exactly the kind of material that can keep forgotten lives from disappearing.