Preface

George Stavert Tanton was born and lived his early life in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, one of the twelve children of Jarvis Pope T anton and Bessie Eleanor Stavert. He was educated in Summerside schools and at Mount Allison Academy, Sackville, New Brunswick. He received his Licentiate in Theologyfrom the University ofKing's College, Halifax, in 1938, and his Bachelor of Arts degreefrom King’s in 1945. During his time as a student at King's he not only played rugby, managed the basketball team, presided over the College Missionary Society, and sat on the student council, he also served as the first president of the Nova Scotia Diocesan Council of the Anglican Young People’s Association. In 1967 King’s honoured him by conferring upon him the degree ofDoctor ofDivinity, Honoris Causa. Earlier he had been made a Canon ofAl/ Saints' Cathedral, Halifax, and had received the Rural Fellowship Award of the American Episcopal Church. In 1941 he married Constance Ruby Tufts. who bore him‘four children: Mary, Ruth, Ann, and Peter.

This book is in no sense a biography. It is rather a souvenir, a reminder ofa remarkable man, per/zaps the outstanding Anglican priest ofhis generation in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

I first heard of ”Staff" Tanton from friends in newspaper circles in Halifax, who knew him as "The Tangier Terror”. He was the dominantfigure on Nova Scotia’s ”eastern shore ", a string of mostly small, isolated seaside communities scattered along the rugged Atlantic coast east of Halifax, for I4 years. In Halifax,