Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/583

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KING
KING
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country about 1718. Thomas was educated at Westfield academy, Mass., studied law, and re- moved to Georgia in 1823, settling in Glynn county, where he became the owner of extensive cotton plantations. He entered public life about ls:;-2 as a member of the state senate, and held the office for four years. In 1838, when the nullifica- tion question arose, Mr. King attached himself to the state-rights party, and was elected to the Georgia senate on that ticket. In 1840 he was a member of the young men's convention of Balti- more, and about that time became a president of several railway and canal companies. Mr. King was a member of congress from Georgia in 1839-'43 and 1845-'9, having been chosen as a Whig, and took an active interest in naval affairs and in the promotion of ocean steam navigation. He was de- feated in 1842 and 1848, and, when Gen. Taylor became president, was appointed collector of the port of San Francisco, holding the office from 1849 till 1851. On his return to Georgia, he was again elected state senator in 1859, and in 1861, when Georgia seceded, he was sent by the state as commissioner to Europe, remaining there for two years. — His son, Henry Lord Page, b. on St. Simon's island, Ga., 25 April, 1831 ; d. in Fred- ericksburg, Va., 13 Dec, 18(52, was graduated at Yale in 1852, and at the Harvard law-school in 1855. He was aide-de-camp on the staff of Gen. LaFayette McLaws, was in the seven days' fight before Richmond, at Antietam, Harper's Ferry, and Fredericksburg, where he was killed.


KING, Thomas Starr, clergyman, b. in New York city, 17 Dec, 1824; d. in San Francisco, Cal.. 4 March, 1863. He was the son of a Univer- salist clergyman, and his early life was spent in various towns where his father preached. In 1835 the family settled in Charlestown, Mass., where, after the death of his father, he became a clerk in a dry-goods store. In 1840 he was appointed assistant teacher in the Bunker Hill grammar- school, and his time out- side of his regular duties was spent in study. Two years later he became principal of the West grammar-school of Med- ford, Mass., where he studied for the minis- try under Hosea Ballou. Subsequently he was clerk in the navy-yard at Charlestown, and in September. 1845, he de- livered his first sermon

in Woburn. He then

preached for a Universalist society in Boston, and in July, 1846, he was called to his father's for- mer church in Charlestown. In 1848 he accepted a call from the Hollis street Unitarian church, where he continued for eleven years. During this term of ministry he grew steadily in power and reputation. He was not considered as profoundly learned ; he was not a great writer; nor could his unrivalled popularity be ascribed to his fascinating, social, or intellectual gifts. " It was," says Dr. Henry W. Bellows, "the hidden, interior man of the heart, the invisible character behind all the rich possessions, intellectual and social, of this gifted man, that gave him his real power and skill to control the wills, and to move the hearts, and to win the unbounded confidence and affection of his fellow-beings." Mr. King also at this time acquired great popularity as a lecturer in the northern states. His first lecture was on " Goethe," and it was followed by one on "Substance and Snow," which almost equalled in popularity that of Wen- dell Phillips on " The Lost Arts." The subjects which he afterward selected, such as "Socrates," "Sight and Insight." and "The Laws of Dis- order," obtained almost as great a reputation. His name soon became associated with the White mountains, for it was there that he spent most of his summers, drawing in those inspirations, descrip- tive of natural scenery, which abound in his dis- courses, and he was familiar with every ravine and peak of that region. In 1853 he began to print ac- counts of his explorations in the " Boston Tran- script," and, having visited it for ten years in winter as well as summer, he embodied the results of his experience in a volume entitled "The White Hills, their Legends. Landscape, and Poetrv" (Boston. 1859; new ed.. 1887). In 1860 he left Boston, and accepted a call to San Francisco, Cal. As in the east, he was soon asked to lecture in California and Oregon. Letters of his experience found their way to the Boston papers, and, as the White mountains became known largely through his efforts, so too he was one of the first to call public attention to the beauties of the Yosemite valley. In the presi- dential canvass of 1860. when the suggestion of a Pacific republic was made, "taking the constitu- tion and Washington for his text, he went forth appealing to the people." He spoke on " Webster and the Constitution." "Lexington and the New Struggle," and " Washington and the Union," and his magnificent eloquence swept everything before it. Mr. King urged the paramount duty of actively supporting the Union ; "for," he contended, "whatever of theory, of party, of personal ambition, or of prejudice, in this great hour, may have to pass away, it seems to be the will of the American people that the grand inheritance of the fathers of the republic shall not pass away.*' To him credit is given for having preserved Cali- fornia to the Union, and later, when the civil war had begun, he was active in his labors with the sanitary commission. Meanwhile he was occupied with the building of a new church, and in Septem- ber, 1862, the corner-stone was laid. On Christmas, 1863. the church was finished, and it was dedicated on 10 Jan., 1864. Before March came, he was stricken with diphtheria, and after a few days' illness died. His remains were buried in the church that he had built, and remained there until 1887, when, on the sale of the church property, the sarcophagus was transferred to the Masonic ceme- tery. A movement for the purpose of erecting a monument in Golden Gate park, to cost $50,000, has taken shape in San Francisco during the present year (1887), and the collection of funds is now in progress throughout California. Mr. King received the degree of A. M. from Harvard in 1850. Several volumes of Ins sermons appeared posthumously, including " Patriotism and Other Papers " (Boston. 1865) : " Christianity and Human- ity." with a memoir by Edwin P. Whipple (1877); and "Substance and Snow" (1877). See also "A Tribute to Thomas Starr King," by Richard Frothingham (1865).


KING, William, soldier, b. in Maryland; d. near Mobile. Ala., 1 Jan., 1826. He was appointed a lieutenant of infantry. 3 May. 1808; captain. 2 July, 1812 ; and assistant inspector-general, 10 July, 1812 He commanded the expedition from Black Rock to Canada in November. 1812, in which he was wounded and taken prisoner. He was pro-