Walter D. Edmonds '26, a member of the Board of Overseers from 1944 to 1950 and well-known author of the classics Drums Along the Mohawk and Chad Hanna, died Saturday at his home in Concord. He was 94.

In his literary work, Edmonds drew on upstate New York's rich history and his own keen observations of rural life, but the key to his success, according to Frank Bergmann, one of his editors, was in giving "the common man his due."

Edmonds was born at his family's summer retreat and farm near the Black River in northern Oneida County, New York. While a student at Harvard, he published several works and began writing professionally at the urging of a professor.

Drums Along the Mohawk, the story of the settling of the Mohawk Valley in New York during the years of the American Revolution, was a best-selling book, and a 1939 movie.