New-York Historical Society

The New-York Historical Society will conserve the Beekman Family Coach, one of only three 18th-century vehicles used in North America to survive with nearly all of its original components and the only extant example from the colonial era. The treatment will remove a dangerous top layer of varnish covering the coach but preserve appropriate evidence of wear in order to maximize the educational value of the piece while also correcting dangerous and visually dramatic surface losses or disfigurement, corrosion or structural damage, and securing the object's future stability. Because much of the conservation treatment will take place in a public gallery, every visitor to the museum and library will see the ongoing work, as will those passing by the museum's street-facing glass entryway. As part of a historically valuable collection of documents and artifacts that provide a comprehensive record of pre-Revolutionary American life, the Beekman Coach brings to life the political, economic, and social history of colonial America.