The late Briton C. Busch held the Willliam R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of History chair at Colgate University. He was the editor of Alta California 1840-1842: The Journal of William Dane Phelps (Glendale, 1993), winner of the John Lyman Award in North American Oceanic Memoirs,) Fr?mont's Private Navy, the 1846 Journal of Captain William Dane Phelps (1987), and numerous other works.