LIPPARD HEIRLOOMS
VINTAGE and ANTIQUE GALLERY
The Lippard Family Chairs
The oldest extant Lippard family antiques
Handcrafted probably by the 1730's from well-grained wood, stained black, slightly different in style, but both with woven wood-slat or caned bottoms and similarly curved back slats and shaped lathed legs. One for the wife; the other for the husband. Of perfect sizes for Wilhelm and Catherina Lippard. Hers with no arms to accommodate nursing babies or cuddling some of the younger of their children. Sturdy chairs offering love and rest for this pioneer family in their house in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.
Their children were:
- Johannes - born in 1734 Germany; died 1804 North Carolina
- Christian - born in 1736 Germany
- Magdalena - b. 1738 Germany, Rotterdam, at sea, or Pennsylvania
- James - born c. 1743 in Pennsylvania, d. 1804, Iredell Co., NC
- Anna Catharina - born March 1750 in Pennsylvania
- Robert - born c. 1752 in Pennsylvania
Armless Chair for Nursing Mothers
Companion Chair
These chairs may have been among the very first pieces of furniture purchased by Wilhelm and Catherina when they arrived in Pennsylvania to help make their new home a home. Or they could have belonged to Conrad and Anna Maria and given as a loving farewell gift perhaps by his mother when Wilhelm made his decision to move south. Wilhelm and Catherina evidently moved his family and the Lippard chairs from Pennsylvania south eventually to Cabarrus County, North Carolina, where they must have been inherited by their son Revolutionary Captain Johannes and his wife Catherine and then to their sons, William and his wife Mary Cress who moved to Indiana and John and his wife Mary Barbara Horlacher who moved to Iredell County, NC, sometime after 1795.
From there the ladder back chairs were passed down through the Lippard family to William, Henry, Albert Henry, and Mary. Mary's son James Rumple acquired the armless chair. From there it went to his daughter Margaret Rumple McNeely, all of whom lived in Iredell County. Mary's other son, Thomas Paul Rumple, who lived in Maryland, acquired the chair with arms. From there his daughter Harriet Rumple Schroeder, who lived first in Maryland, acquired it. She and her family with that chair moved back to Iredell where she passed it on to her cousin Gary Freeze, son of James' and Paul's sister Sudie. These chairs are now museum items.
When Johannes's son William and his family moved after the War of 1812 to Ripley County, Indiana, they took a rocking chair with them. It was passed down through their family line to Ernest Lipperd's family.
The Lippard Clock
The second oldest known extant Lippard relic
Vintage Grandfather Clock
Enlarged Clock Face
Time and the Lippard Clock
I'm a rather good looking fellow, tall and fair, yet over two hundred thirty years old.
I barely remember my creator Asa Hopkins using apple wood for my brain --
chop, saw, sand, shape a face to be admired above polished pine and poplar.
My voice resounds its melodic chimes as morning turns to noon, evening, night.
Many fingers young and old have pulled my ropes lifting my weights each day.
As the years passed, my family held me close, increased, grew older, and died away.
I was not born a southern lad but rather a Yankee from Litchfield, Connecticut,
somehow making my way to North Carolina at least eight long generations ago.
Was I ordered through a salesman? Did I travel by wagon down those bumpy roads?
Was I purchased new or second-hand by John to stand in the corner of his log home,
admired lovingly by family and friends alike as they heard the messages I resounded?
John, William, Henry, Albert, Mary, Hoyt, Carroll, Ann, I have loved you all as you moved
through your lives to the tick-tocking and chiming of my wooden soul.
Contributions
Do you have any Lippard family heirlooms?
Please send your contributions and include your name, a photo and the name of the item, approximate date, stories about the item, and name of the original Lippard owner(s) if possible to harriet.r.schroeder@gmail.com.
DEFINITIONS: Vintage Items 80 to 100 years old. Antique Items 100 years old and older.
PHOTOS
Margaret Eva Lippard's 100th birthday party
Troutman N.C.
2019 Reunion, Troutman N.C.
