Cecilia "Peach" Taylor, 1948 American Folk Art Watercolor, Gouache, Painting Horse Farm, Running Horses, 1948

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Cecilia "Peach" Taylor (Mrs Reginald B. Taylor)
Folk Art watercolor painting of horses titled "White Horse Farm)
painted in 1948
… Read more Cecilia "Peach" Taylor (Mrs Reginald B. Taylor)
Folk Art watercolor painting of horses titled "White Horse Farm)
painted in 1948
A classic example of self taught, American Folk Art done in a naive style.
Framed 22.5 X 28.5, image 16 X 23


During the dismal years of the Great Depression until World War II, the East Aurora Hunt flourished in Western New York State, just southeast of Buffalo. According to a 1968 article that appeared in the East Aurora Shopping Guide, “The hunt was colorful, not only because of the scarlet coats but also the excitement it brought to the area each fall . . . It was a new source of village pride with everyone learning to share the exuberant interest of the huntsmen.”
In 1930, the country of the Lake Shore Hunt Club—a New York hunt that existed from 1920 to 1933—was divided and the East Aurora Hunt began. In the beginning, East Aurora shared MFHs—Howard Kellog and William C. Warren Jr.—with Lake Shore.
But by 1932, Mrs. Seymour H. (Helen) Knox and Mrs. Reginald B. (Cecelia “Peach”) Taylor took over as joint Masters of the East Aurora Hunt, and it is their legacy that reverberates in today’s equestrian community.
Knox’s granddaughter, Linda Knox McLean MFH, hunts the Aiken Hounds, and Taylor’s grandson was Mason Phelps Jr., the chairman of the National Horse Show Association and an alternate for the 1968 Olympic eventing team. Phelps started his eventing career riding his grandmother’s homebred field hunters, to the envy of other cross-country competitors.
The Masters of Foxhounds Association Executive Director Dennis Foster said that the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association, which still held records of hounds at that time, recognized the East Aurora Hunt on Jan. 1, 1932. Hunt colors were dark green with orange facings. There were two professional huntsmen officially listed, Frank Vinall (1932-34) and Fred Yull (1934-39).
Throughout East Aurora Hunt history, it was the Knox family that provided the club’s foundation. A mid-1930’s article from a Buffalo newspaper noted that “hunters gathered at the kennels on the Knox estate,” known then as Ess Kay Farm.
Seymour Horace Knox was the Buffalo, N.Y., businessman who made his fortune in five-and-dime stores when he merged his more than 100 stores with those of his first cousins, to form the F.W. Woolworth Company and then used his merger proceeds to purchase a controlling interest in the Marine Trust Co. (today HSBC Bank USA). His children, Seymour H. Knox II, Marjorie and Dorothy and their spouses were avid equestrians. Seymour II played polo along with his friend Reginald B. Taylor. And while they were both also foxhunters, it was their wives—Helen and Peach—who led the East Aurora Hunt. See less