Leonard Kip

Background

Kip, born September 13, 1826, descended from prosperous and distinguished Hudson River valley Dutch and Huguenot landowners who had settled in the New Amsterdam colony in the early 17th century.

Education

He attended Trinity College in Connecticut from 1842-1846, studied law after receiving his Bachelor of Arts and was preparing to commence a legal career when news of the mining bonanza at Sutter"s Mill excited his curiosity and ambition.

Career

However, he continued to contribute to the California-based magazine Overland Monthly until 1894. He became one of the fabled Forty-Niners, making the long voyage round Cape Horn to California. The rawness of San Francisco intrigued him without pleasing him.

He saw it as “running wild after amusement” 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”. In 1850, he published his first book, the California Sketches that recount his skeptical observations of the Gold Rush.

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 died February 15, 1906.

Achievements

• Leonard Kip has been listed as a notable author by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

• book

  • California Sketches With Recollections of the Gold Mines (Gold Rush).

Connections

Father:

Leonard Kip. Kip