Kenneth Newcomer Gilpin

This article or section is in a state of significant expansion or restructuring. You are welcome to assist in its construction by editing it as well. If this article or section has not been edited in several days, please remove this template. If you are the editor who added this template and you are actively editing, please be sure to replace this template with {{in use}} during the active editing session. Click on the link for template parameters to use. This article was last edited by Jweaver28 (talk | contribs) 3 days ago. (Update timer)

Kenneth Newcomer Gilpin (February 14, 1890 – June 21, 1947) was a military aviator in both World War I and World War II, as well as served three-terms in the Virginia House of Delegates and bred thoroughbred horses.^[1]

Early and family life and military service[edit]

Born in Baltimore to the former Hattie Newcomer (an heiress) and her merchant husband Henry Brooke Gilpin. His father's family could trace their ancestry to the American Revolutionary War and a farm near Bedford, Pennsylvania, as well as the distinguished Brooke family of Maryland. By 1907 his mother desired a country estate, and the family moved to Clarke County, Virginia within four years, after noted Baltimore architect Howard Sill constructed a massive mansion in the America Country Movement style, called Scaleby after the ancestral Gilpin family estate in Britain.^[2] Kenneth received a private education suitable to his class, first at Gilman's School, then St. James School. He then traveled to Charlottesville to study at the University of Virginia.

Gilpin met Isabella McGhee Tyson, sister of his classmate and friend McGhee Tyson, whom he married before traveling to Europe to fight in World War I. Their father was a West Point graduate descended from Virginia gentry who became a Tennessee manufacturer (upon marrying an heiress) and rose to become Brigadier General during World War I and later U.S. Senator. Both McGhee Tyson and Kenneth Gilpin became military aviators during the conflict. However, McGhee Tyson died after crashing into the North Sea a month before the armistice. Gilpin would name his son McGhee Tyson Gilpin (1919–2000) after his friend (and both father and son would serve in the U.S. Army in World War II, Gilpin as Major in the Air Corps and his McGhee Gilpin as captain in Army Intelligence). Their other son was Kenneth N. Gilpin II (1923–1996), who became an actor after his military service. Their daughter Betty Brooke Gilpin was born in 1935. His granddaughter (McGhee Gilpin's daughter), Drew Gilpin Faust would become President of Harvard University.

Career[edit]

Upon moving to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Gilpin bred horses, and was also active in veterans' organization, the Episcopal Church, Blue Ridge Hunt Club, Blue Ridge County Club, Commonwealth Club and Maryland Club.^[3]

Voters from Clarke and adjacent Warren county elected him as their representative in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1915, and re-elected him until 1922.^[4]

After retiring from politics, Gilpin concentrated on breeding thoroughbred racehorses. Although the Scaleby estate was once 200 acres,^[5] by 1941, when he helped found the Virginia Thoroughbred Association and became its first president, he listed his address as the approximately 50 acre Kentmere estate.^[6]

Death and legacy[edit]

Gilpin died on June 21, 1947, during a business trip to Manhattan in New York City. His remains were returned to Virginia, where they were buried in historic Old Chapel cemetery in Millwood. His son McGhee Gilpin would continue the family's thoroughbred breeding enterprises while residing at Lakeville nearby.^[7] Scaleby remained owned by Gilpin's descendants until 1986, was placed on the Virginia Landmark Register and National Register for Historic Places in 1990, and is now in the Chapel Rural Historic District. The Gilpin family papers are held by the University of North Carolina.^[8]

References[edit]