Lockhart Amerman

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Lockhart Amerman (1911–1969) was an American Presbyterian minister and novelist. Born in New York City, he grew up in a family that valued education. He went to Collegiate School in New York and then attended Haverford College, where he was the editor of The Haverfordian in 1930 and helped with the senior yearbook. He also played cricket for four years at Haverford.

After graduating in 1931, Amerman studied at Princeton Theological Seminary and finished in 1935. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister and served as Assistant Pastor at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. He later became the pastor of Sewickley Presbyterian Church near Pittsburgh, a position he held from 1939 to 1968.

Amerman was an active writer and scholar. He published Where Saints Have Trod (1943), and wrote The Menace of the Sunday School (1944) in The Christian Century, criticizing simplistic Sunday School teachings. He also published Wheat for a Penny (1945) and The Pulpit Steps (1949). He earned a Doctor of Divinity and taught at Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary).

In addition to his religious work, Amerman wrote several young adult mystery novels featuring Jonathan Flower, the teenage son of an American spy. Guns in the Heather was published in 1963, followed by Cape Cod Casket (1964) and The Sly One (1966). Guns in the Heather was adapted by Disney as The Secret of Boyne Castle and aired on Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color in 1969. In Europe it was released as Guns in the Heather, and it was later rebroadcast in the U.S. as Spy-Busters in 1978.

Personal life: Amerman married Louise Landreth in Bristol, Pennsylvania, in 1940, and they had four children. The family often vacationed at a cabin his father built at Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks.

Amerman died in November 1969 at the age of 58.