Ted’s fascination with American history was planted in his early childhood. He grew up the youngest of five children in a New England family with roots that literally dated back to the Mayflower’s arrival in 1620. His mother’s side of the family (at least that’s how the story goes) can be traced to a man named William Brewster who arrived on the Mayflower and became the senior elder of the original colony and an advisor to the first Governor William Bradford.
With five children and a limited budget, Richardson family vacations usually involved piling into the family’s ’67 Ambassador Wagon and hitting the road. Destinations had to be no more than six hours away—because any longer than that and all hell would break loose in the back seat! Now if you take a compass and draw a six hour radius from Ted’s childhood home, it basically covers an area from Maine to Virginia – which includes most of the places that gave birth to our country. To the north were places like Sturbridge Village, Plymouth Plantation, and Lexington and Concord—where the ‘first shot heard around the world’ was fired. To the south were Colonial Williamsburg, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. As you might imagine, it didn’t take Ted long to become hooked on American history.
Fast forward a few decades. After more than twenty-five years as a business professional, Ted finally parlayed his fascination with American history and love of a good mystery into writing his own works of fiction.
