The American Chestnut Foundation Rocking Chair

In early 2015, we were brought in touch with the American Chestnut Foundation's VT/NH chapter thanks to Tom Thiel at Northwind Tonewood and a presentation that the chapter held in our hometown of Sandwich, NH. Although it's not widely known, there are still a few chestnut trees alive in the Northeast that have held out against the blight which ravaged millions of trees and removed the chestnut from our landscape for the last three generations. When found, these trees become identified as potential "mother trees" for the ongoing hybridization efforts of the American Chestnut Foundation, which seeks to repopulate the lost chestnuts of the Northeast with blight-resistant stock.

In the last few years, one of these "mother trees" in Berlin, VT sadly finally succumbed to the blight, and upon its passing it was quickly harvested by the VT/NH chapter. The result: a small cache of extremely rare, unwormed chestnut. Nearly all chestnut found on the market in our current age is heavily wormed, having died on the stump from the blight and then become infested over years, if not decades, before being found and harvested for use. 

Randy Knight (l) of the VT/NH chapter of TACF, and Adam Nudd-Homeyer  of Tappan Chairs, with the slab of chestnut from the "mother tree" from which this special edition Tappan Rocker was crafted. Photo courtesy of Yurij Bihun, VT/NH chapter president.

We are honored to have been selected by the VT/NH chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation to use some of the wood from this very special "mother tree" to craft a limited edition series of American Chestnut Tappan Rockers for the purposes of fundraising for the Foundation, as well as helping to build awareness of their mission. Our deep thanks to the American Chestnut Foundation and its VT/NH chapter for this wonderful opportunity!

The first "American Chestnut Tappan Rocker", which made its debut at the national conference of the American Chestnut Foundation at Penn State College in October of 2015, and helped raise over $8000 for the Foundation!

AS OF APRIL 2019, THIS SPECIAL EDITION IS SOLD OUT. Our final chair in this series raised $15,000 for the American Chestnut Foundation!