American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts

Note

Colonel Lawrence Kip, a socially prominent New Yorker, was best known as a horseman. He served as president of the Coney Island Jockey Club, Suburban Riding and Driving Club and Vice-President of the National Horse Show Association. According to William Henry Goucher, Trotalong (1928), "Colonel Lawrence Kip[p] whose road rigs set the fashion for appointments and style not only at the National Horse Show, but all over the country." Kip also had an illustrious military career from 1857-1867 as a Second Lieutenant Third Artillery and published a book about his experiences in the North West Indian wars, Army Life on the Pacific (1859). During the Civil War, Kip served on the staffs of Generals Edwin Vose Sumner, John E. Wool, Robert O. Tyler and Philip Sheridan. He saw action in the Battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Seven Pines, Glendale, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Mine Run, Battle of Rappahanock Station, Battles of Trevilian Station, Cedar Creek, Battles of Dinwiddie Court House, Five Forks, High Bridge, Sailor's Creek, Appomattox Station and Court House. He received a number of commendations for gallant and meritorious service during the war and on April 1, 1865, was brevetted Lieutenant Colonel.