Leonard Kip (1826–1906) was a scion of Old New York who joined the Gold Rush to California for a year of adventure before returning to his home state for a long career in law and literature. However, he continued to contribute to the California-based magazine Overland Monthly until 1894.
Life and work
Kip, born September 13, 1826, descended from prosperous and distinguished Hudson River valley Dutch and
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
landowners who had settled in the New Amsterdam colony in the early 17th century.
[Waters, Henry Fitz-Gilbert. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1893). 487-8.] He attended
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
in
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
from 1842 to 46, studied law after receiving his B.A. and was preparing to commence a legal career when news of the mining bonanza at
Sutter's Mill
Sutter's Mill was a water-powered sawmill on the bank of the South Fork American River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California. It was named after its owner John Sutter. A worker constructing the mill, James W. Marshall, found gold t ...
excited his curiosity and ambition. He became one of the fabled
Forty-Niners, making the long voyage round Cape Horn to California.
[“Virtual American Biographies.”] The rawness of San Francisco intrigued him without pleasing him. He saw it as “running wild after amusement”
[Kip, Leonard. California Sketches (1850). 8, 54, 56-58.] and seeking wealth in an “unnatural excitement which could not last”.
After several months in mining country near Stockton, Kip left California predicting the collapse not only of gold fever but of any significant future the state due to “a climate presenting the most insufferable extremes of heat and cold,” worthless soil, scarcity of water, and the growing threat of cholera in what was already a “stronghold of dysentery”.
He returned east, settled into legal work in
Albany, and married, in 1852, Harriet L. Van Rensselaer, daughter of Gen.
John Sanders Van Rensselaer and member of an even more prominent New York family than his own.
[“Leonard Kip Dead.” New York Times (February 16, 1906).] In 1850, he published his first book, the ''California Sketches'' that recount his skeptical observations of the
Gold Rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
. Other books and articles followed, including ten novels, most of them tales of mystery or the supernatural. In 1855, he was elected president of the
Albany Institute of Art and History, a position he filled for ten years.
[“Kip, the Building of Our Cities.” www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/kip.htm.] Kip died February 15, 1906.
Although Leonard Kip quickly wearied of California, his brother the Rt. Rev.
William Ingraham Kip
William Ingraham Kip (October 3, 1811 – April 7, 1893) was an American Protestant Episcopal bishop.
Early life
Kip was born in New York City, of Breton ancestry, the son of Leonard Kip and Maria (Ingraham) Kip.Memorial Biographies, 130 He gr ...
(1811–93) followed in 1853 and remained until his death forty years later, a major figure in the state's development as the first Protestant
Episcopal
Episcopal may refer to:
*Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church
*Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese
*Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name
** Episcopal Church (United State ...
Bishop of California and a noted religious writer and church historian.
[“William Ingraham Kip.” Wikipedia.]
Other publications
Besides contributing to periodicals, he published:
* ''California Sketches'' (1850)
* ''Volcano Diggings'' (1851)
* ''Ænone'' (1866)
* ''The Dead Marquise'' (1873)
* ''
Hannibal
Hannibal (; xpu, 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, ''Ḥannibaʿl''; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Puni ...
's Man and Other Tales'' (1878)
* ''Under the Bells'' (1879)
* ''Nestlenook'' (1880)
Footnotes
External links
The official California Legacy Project websiteLeonard Kip at openlibrary.org*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kip, Leonard
Writers from Albany, New York
Writers from New York City
19th-century American novelists
1826 births
1906 deaths
People of the California Gold Rush
American male novelists
19th-century American male writers
Novelists from New York (state)