author
Thomas D. (Thomas Davis) Whittles
b. 1873
A Presbyterian missionary, novelist, and early college football coach, he turned his firsthand knowledge of church work in the American North Woods into fiction. His books center on rugged frontier communities and the life of missionary Frank E. Higgins.
1 Audiobook
The Lumberjack Sky Pilot
by Thomas D. (Thomas Davis) Whittles
About the author
Born in Lancashire, England, on December 27, 1873, he later built a varied career in the United States as a Presbyterian missionary, writer, and college football coach. He is best remembered in literary circles for a small group of missionary novels inspired by the life of Frank E. Higgins.
His best-known books include The Lumberjack's Sky Pilot, The Parish of the Pines, and Frank Higgins, Trail Blazer. Those works draw on religious work among lumber communities and give his writing a practical, on-the-ground feeling rather than a purely sentimental one.
He died on December 6, 1950. While he is not a widely known figure today, his work offers a vivid glimpse of early twentieth-century Protestant missionary storytelling in the American Midwest and frontier regions.