[2] His namesake father was the eldest son of the former Helen Day Miller and Jay Gould, a leading American railroad developer and speculator who has been referred to as one of the ruthless robber barons of the Gilded Age, whose success at business made him one of the richest men of his era.

[1] He served as an officer in World War I with the American Expeditionary Forces, where he distinguished himself as a division observer and interpreter.

[1] On July 2, 1917, Gould was married to Annunziata Camilla Maria Lucci (1890–1961)[6] in the rectory of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, New York City.

[6] Together they had the following children: After their marriage, they traveled extensively and maintained a country estate, known as Furlow Lodge, in Ulster County, New York, which had been Gould's summer home as a boy.

Time wrote on July 27, 1942 : To beat the gas & rubber shortage Manhattan’s Mrs. Kingdon Gould took the old family carriages out of moth balls, sent Daughter Edith to buy a pair of horses.