On both sides of the house Mr. King came of excellent American stock. His mother was the daughter of Governor Worthington, who was of the Virginia colony in Ohio, settling at Chillicothe, the first capital of the State, in the midst of the Scioto lands allotted by Virginia before the cession to her Revolutionary soldiers. The Kings were of the New England colony before they became New Yorkers, and so the best Northern and Southern blood mingled in his veins. His father, Edward King, had left New York a young man, to see what opening fortune might offer him as a lawyer in the new State of Ohio. Visiting Governor Worthington's family, he found attractions in Chil licothe which fastened him, for there he wooed and wedded Sarah Worthington, and won also an early success at the bar as an elo quent and accomplished lawyer. When the capital of the State was removed from Ross County to Columbus, the Kings changed their home to Cincinnati, where the , largest field offered itself to a lawyer of rec ognized power. Mr. Edward King with Mr. Timothy Walker established the Cincin nati Law School in 1833, — the first attempt at systematic legal education in the Missis sippi valley. Mr. Rufus King's great inter est in the Law School was therefore, like his virtues, hereditary. After preparing for and beginning his collegiate education at Kenyon College, Bishop Chase's new foundation, he completed his undergraduate course at Har vard College, taking his degree of B.A. there in 1839. He remained at Cambridge in the Dane Law School under Story and Greenleaf through a two years' course, graduating in 184 1, and returned home to Cincinnati to practise his profession. His junior partners in practice constitute a long line of men in the first rank of political, judicial, and pro fessional eminence. He himself, however, adhered to his purpose to remain a private citizen, except when in 1874 he became a member of the convention to revise the Con stitution of the State. This was so emi nently a call to the highest work of a lawyer
that he yielded to it, and after Morrison R. Waite was transferred from its chair to the Chief-Justiceship of the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. King was his successor in the presidency of the convention. He did not shrink from the labor of ad ministering local interests, especially educa tional. He was long active in the board of directors of the public schools; he was the chief actor in creating the Cincinnati Public Library; he was one of the first trustees of the McMicken bequest, and for many years nursed it into the foundation of the Univer sity of Cincinnati. In 1875 the trustees of the old corporation of the Cincinnati College (incorporated in 1 8 19) determined to enlarge the course of study in the I.aw School, and Mr. King be came the Dean of the Faculty, with the arrangement that he should retire from ac tive practice in court and devote most of his time to the school. He took upon himself the burden of instructing the Junior class daily in the Elements and Institutes, beside lecturing to the Senior class in one depart ment of the law. In connection with this he continued his consultation and chamber practice, but after five years asked to be relieved from the deanship, resuming full practice and continuing his lectures on Constitutional Law and the Law of Real Property. In these professional relations his last years were spent; and though 'he was relieved from the most severe labors of the court-room and of the office, he kept the har ness on till his last sickness overtook him. In 1888 he wrote for the American Com monwealth series his historical volume on "Ohio, the First-fruits of the Ordinance of 1787." This is chiefly devoted to the an alysis of- the events which led to and accom panied the organization of Ohio as a State and gave character to the new community. The picture of Western colonization and of the elements and forces co-operating to make the new State what it was, is ably and attrac tively drawn. The bent of mind of the con stitutional lawyer is seen in each step of the
