According to the donor's great-aunt, Mrs. Francis A. Livingston (Catharine Roosevelt Kissam), this camp bed was given by Washington to his recording secretary, Richard Varick (1753-1831), at the close of the Revolutionary War. Varick then entrusted it to his wife's niece, Mrs. John L. Lefferts (Helena Kissam), who subsequently gave it to her great-nephew, the donor.