Kil-Kor: Kilbourn through Korner

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


KILBOURN, Asahel, Portage County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-39


KILTY, William, 1757-1821, Annapolis, Maryland, Army surgeon, lawyer, jurist, Chancellor (governor) of Maryland.  Member of the Annapolis auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. 

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 375; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 70)


KIMBALL, David T., Ipswich, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Manager, 1833-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. 

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


KIMBALL, George, abolitionist, Illinois, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-38.


KIMBALL, John S., Boston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1835-36.


KIMBALL, Joseph Horace, 1813-1836, author, anti-slavery agent, editor of the Herald of Freedom newspaper of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society.   He was sent to the British West Indies with abolitionist James A. Thome to observe and report on Black emancipation there.  They published Emancipation in the West Indies: A Six Months’ Tour in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica in 1837.  

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 537; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 188, 393n25)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 537:

KIMBALL, Joseph Horace, author, born in Pembroke, New Hampshire, 26 April, 1813; died in West Concord, New Hampshire, 11 April, 1836. He resided in Concord, New Hampshire, where he edited “The Herald of Freedom,” an anti-slavery journal. After a visit to the West India islands he published jointly with two friends “Emancipation in the West Indies: a Six Months’ Tour in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica in 1837” (New York, 1838). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


KIMBER, Abby, Pennsylvania, delegate to the (Garrisonian) Anti-Slavery Society, Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, Eastern Branch, Philadelphia, and Officer of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS).  Attended World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, 1840.  Helped Passmore Williamson in the fugitive slave case in Philadelphia in 1855.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 286; Sinha, 2016, pp. 289, 528; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 332)


KIMBER, Emmor, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Society of Friends, Quaker, member of the Association of Friends for Advocating the Cause of the Slave.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 154)


KING, Austin Augustus, 1802-1870, statesman, lawyer, jurist.  Democratic Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri.  Served as Congressman December 1863-March 1865, and as Governor of Missouri.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume III, p. 538; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 382; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 538:

KING, Austin Augustus, statesman, born in Sullivan county, Tennessee, 20 September, 1801; died in St. Louis, Missouri, 22 April, 1870. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1822, and in 1830 removed to Missouri, where he continued to practise. In 1834 he was chosen to the legislature, and he was re-elected in 1836. In 1837 he was appointed judge of the circuit court, holding the office till 1848, when he was chosen governor of Missouri, his term expiring in 1853. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Democratic national convention at Charleston, where he made an effective speech in behalf of Stephen A. Douglas. He subsequently took the ground that the war for the Union was unnecessary. In 1862 he was restored to his old place as circuit judge, but shortly afterward resigned to take a seat in the 38th congress, to which he had been elected, serving from 7 December, 1863, till 3 March, 1865. He then devoted himself to the practice of his profession. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 538.


KING, Dexter S., Boston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-, 1846-?-50-, Manager, 1842-, Executive Committee, 1842-, 1846-, 1850, President, 1844-45.


KING, Horatio (June 21, 1811-May 20, 1897), editor, lawyer, postmaster-general. Kind “remained a loyal Union Democrat throughout the war and served on President Lincoln's commission which determined compensation for slaves emancipated within the District of Columbia”.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 391-392:

KING, HORATIO (June 21, 1811-May 20, 1897), editor, lawyer, postmaster-general, was born at Paris, Maine, a descendant of Philip King, who had emigrated from England before 1680, settling first at Braintree, and then at Raynham, Massachusetts. A farmer's boy, the seventh of the eleven children of Samuel and Sally (Hall) King, Horatio received a common school education and at eighteen became printer's devil on the weekly Jeffersonian of which, in the following year (1830) with his friend, Hannibal Hamlin, he became part owner. Horatio and Hannibal turned the press while the village schoolmaster for twelve York shillings a week assisted in the editing. In another six months King became sole proprietor. His paper reflected his stanch advocacy of Jacksonian Democracy. Removing his press to Portland in 1833 he continued to edit the Jeffersonian until 1838, when he sold out to the Standard (later merged with the Eastern Argus). In 1839 he received from Amos Kendall a clerkship at $1,000 a year in the Post Office Department at Washington.

For twenty-two years, under Democratic and Whig administrations, from Van Buren to Lincoln, he served in the Post Office Department and by ability and courtesy advanced in successive promotions until he achieved the distinction of rising from clerk to head of department. In charge of mail contracts in New England (1841) he became superintendent (1850) of the foreign mail service, and was instrumental in improving the existing postal conventions with Bremen and Great Britain, and extending the service to the West Indies, South American countries, France, Prussia, Hamburg, and Belgium. The convention with Bremen (1853) inaugurated cheap transatlantic postage. As first assistant postmaster-general (March 28, 1854-January 1, 1861) under Pierce and Buchanan, he satisfactorily filled a position which required infinite political tact. He became acting postmaster-general (January 1861), when Joseph Holt was transferred to the War Department, and served as postmaster-general in Buchanan's cabinet from February 1 to March 8, 1861.

"For the Union without reservations, equally against disunionists at the South and abolitionists at the North" (Turning on the Light, p. 51), King made earnest efforts during the last days of Buchanan's administration to arouse influential men on both sides to avert the impending struggle. In what has been termed the first official denial of the right of secession, he warned Representative J. D. Ashmore of South Carolina (January 28, 1861) that his continued use of the franking privilege was evidence that both he and his state were still in the Union. "For God's sake," he implored Attorney-General Black (December 14, 1860), "let us see the Government placed squarely and unequivocally on the side of the Union!" (Ibid., p. 34). To John A. Dix, later through his efforts made secretary of the treasury, he wrote (December 17, 1860): "I am determined to sustain the Union until not a hope of its continuance remains" (Ibid., p. 35). He remained a loyal Union Democrat throughout the war and served on President Lincoln's commission which determined compensation for slaves emancipated within the District of Columbia.

King's law practice before the executive departments, war claims, and international commissions at Washington won him wealth and a considerable reputation. One of Washington's foremost citizens for thirty-five years, he was secretary of the Washington Monument society, a leader of the Saturday Evening Literary Club which met at his home, and a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines on political, historical, and literary subjects. His tours of Europe (1867, 1875-76) resulted in his Sketches of Travel (1878), and his letters in rhyme delighted a wide circle of friends. Late in life he published  Turning on the Light (1895), a defense of Buchanan's administration. He was ever active in postal affairs, drafting the law requiring prepayment on transient printed matter, and devoting seven years of "vexatious, gratuitous labor" until, by the act of July 5, 1884, the economical and efficient device of the official "penalty envelope" was adopted. King was married, on May 25, 1835, to Anne Collins of Portland. She died in 1869 and on February 8, 1875, he was married to Isabella G. Osborne, of Auburn, New York. He died in Washington in his eighty-fifth year.

[In addition to King's books mentioned in the biography, see Horatio C. King, Horatio King (n.d.); Centennial Literature Reunion at the Residence of Horatio King (Washington, 1884); Enoch Sanford, Genealogy of the Families of Kings (1866); Evening Star (Washington), May 20, 1897. The Horatio King Papers are in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress]

B.M.


KING, John Alsop, 1788-1867, statesman, lawyer, soldier, political leader, diplomat, U.S. Congressman, Governor of New York, son of Rufus King.  He opposed compromises on issues of slavery, especially the Fugitive Slave Law.  Supported admission of California as a free state.  Active in the Whig Party and later founding member of the Republican Party in 1856.  Elected Governor of New York in 1856, serving one term. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 543-544; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 394)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 394-395:

KING, JOHN ALSOP (January 3, 1788-July 7, 1867), congress man, governor of New York, was the eldest son of Rufus, 1755-1827 [q.v.], and Mary (Alsop) King and brother of Charles and James Gore King [qq.v.]. He was born in New York City, but a good part of his boyhood was pa ss ed, with his brothers, in England, while the father was United States minister to that country. He attended Harrow School under the head mastership of Dr. Joseph Drury, while Lord Byron and Robert Peel were pupils there. The discipline was a rare experience for American boys. At that time, the opening years of the nineteenth century, the curriculum was rigidly confined to Latin and Greek. From Harrow the King brothers were sent to a branch of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris for drill in the use of the French language. Their father, having been relieved of the English mi ss ion by the Jefferson administration, had returned to America. In Paris the boys took prizes and were schoolfellows of several of the Empress Josephine's young relations. When they rejoined their parents this family was settled at Jamaica, Long Island John's later studies were chiefly confined to the law. Although admitted to the bar, he had hardly begun practice when the War of 1812 interrupted his plans, and he was commissioned a lieutenant of cavalry at New York.

After the peace, King, who had married Mary Ray, January 3, 1810, cultivated a farm on Long Island not far from his father's estate. At this time his interest in agriculture became dominant. His other absorbing interest was politics. Schooled in Federalism, his earlier alliances in New York were with anti-Clintonian Democrats, or Republicans. He was a member of the state Assembly in 1819-21 and of the state Senate in 1823-25, resigning his seat to go to London as secretary of legation with his father, who was appointed minister to the Court of St. James's by President John Quincy Adams. After his return to America King was in turn allied with the anti-Masons, the National Republicans, and the Whigs, harboring also antislavery sentiments. He was sent at intervals by his district to the state Assembly (1832, 1838, 1840), suffering several defeats for the same office, however. He was a delegate to the Whig national convention of 1839 and ten years later was sent to Congress as a Whig representative, his brother James having a seat for a New Jersey district in the same House. In Congress King opposed the Clay compromise measures, particularly the Fugitive-slave Bill, and urged the admission of California as a free state. He was a delegate to the Whig national convention of 1852, but two years later he presided at the New York state anti-Nebraska convention and in the New York Whig convention of 1855 he moved the adoption of the name "Republican." He was a delegate to the first Republican National Convention in 1856. In the state convention of that year he was named for governor on the second ballot and was elected in November by a large plurality. His term of office was uneventful, the perennial New York issues of education and canal enlargement receiving the usual emphasis in his messages to the legislature. New York's attitude on the question of slavery extension was also set forth at length. The private life to which King retired at the age of seventy-one was only once interrupted, when he was appointed a member of the New York delegation to the Peace Conference of 1861 at Washington. He was stricken by paralysis while making a Fourth of July address to his Long Island neighbors in 1867 and died three days later in the homestead that had been his since his father's death in 1827. He had seven children, one of whom, Charles Ray King, M.D., edited The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King.

[W. W. Spooner; Historic Families of America (n.d.); The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King (6 volumes, 1894-1900), ed. by C. R. King; D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, Volume II (1906); "Eulogium on the Late Governor John A. King," Trans. New York State Agric. Society, pt. I, Volume XXVII (1868); Union League Club of New York Proceedings in Reference to the Death of John A. King, July 11th, I867 (1867); Bayard Tuckerman, The Diary of Philip Hone (2 volumes, 1889); J. A. Scoville, The Old Merchants of New York, volumes I-III (1863-65); New York Tribune, July 8, 1867.

J.W.B.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 543-544:

KING, John Alsop, statesman, born in New York city, 3 January, 1788; died in Jamaica, New York, 7 July, 1867, was, with his brother Charles, placed at school at Harrow during his father's residence in England. Thence he went to Paris, and then returned to New York, where he was admitted to the bar. In 1812, when war with Great Britain was declared, he gave his services to the country, and was later a lieutenant of cavalry stationed in New York. Soon after the war he removed to Jamaica, New York, near his father's home, and was for several years practically engaged in farming. He was elected in 1819 and in several subsequent years to the assembly of the state, and, with his brother Charles, opposed many of the schemes of De Witt Clinton. He was, however, friendly to the canal, and was chosen to the state senate after the adoption of the new constitution. From- this he resigned in order that he might, as secretary of legation, accompany his father on his mission to Great Britain. The failure of the latter's health obliged him to return, and his son remained as charge d'affaires until the arrival of the new minister. Returning home to his residence at Jamaica, he was again, in 1838, sent to the assembly, and in 1849 he took his seat as a representative in congress, having been elected as a Whig. He strenuously resisted the compromise measures, especially the fugitive-slave law, and advocated the admission of California as a free state. He was an active member of several Whig nominating conventions, presided over that at Syracuse, New York, in 1855, where the Republican party was formed, and in 1856, in the convention at Philadelphia, warmly advocated the nomination of General Frémont. He was elected governor of New York in 1856, entered on the duties of the office, 1 January, 1857, and specially interested himself in internal improvements and popular education. On the expiration of his term he declined a renomination on account of increasing age, and retired to private life, from which he only emerged, at the call of Governor Morgan, to become a member of the Peace convention of 1861. He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and was active in its diocesan conventions. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III.


KING, Leicester, 1789-1856, Warren, Ohio, abolitionist leader, political leader, businessman, jurist, leader of the anti-slavery Liberty Party.  Manager, 1837-1839, and Vice President, 1839-1840, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  Ohio State Senator, 1835-1839.  Member, Whig Party.  U.S. Vice Presidential candidate, Liberty Party, in 1848. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 302; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, p. 24; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 50)


KING, Rufus (January 26, 1814-October 13, 1876), soldier, editor, diplomat. As a Whig congressman he voted against the fugitive slave bill and the other compromise measures of 1850.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 400-401)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 400-401:

KING, RUFUS (January 26, 1814-October 13, 1876), soldier, editor, diplomat, the third son of Rufus King, 1755-1827 [q.v.], and Mary (Alsop) King, and brother of Charles and John Alsop King [qq.v.], was born in New York City. Several years of his boyhood were passed in London while his father was minister to the Court of St. James's. Between the ages of seven and ten he was a student in a London boarding school. One of his masters at this period called him a "prodigy in learning" (Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, post, Volume III, p. 50). For three years he was in a Paris school, chiefly for the purpose of acquiring the French language. Returning to America, he was tutored for Harvard by the Reverend Dr. J. S. J. Gardiner, rector of Trinity Church, Boston. He was graduated from Harvard in 1810 at the age of nineteen and began reading law with the well-known jurist, Peter Van Schaick, of Kinderhook, New York, continuing his studies at the famous Litchfield, Connecticut, school under Tapping Reeve and James Gould.

In the War of 1812 he left the legal profession to serve as assistant adjutant-general of militia. At the end of the war he opened a commission house in New York, which he conducted with moderate success for three years. In 1818 he established in Liverpool the house of King & Gracie and remained as senior partner in that enterprise until 1824. He was then asked by John Jacob Astor to become manager of the American Fur Company, but declined. He accepted, however, a partnership in the New York banking house of Prime, Ward & Sands, beginning thus a long and successful career as a banker. His interests and activities extended beyond Wall Street. In 1835 he was made president of the New York & Erie Railroad and served until 1839. The road was then making its first surveys westward from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. The first construction work on the line was done in King's administration, but was stopped by the financial stringency that began in 1836 and continued for over two years. King's business reputation helped to get needed support for the enterprise. In the panic of 1837, when specie payments were suspended, he was able to render an unusual service to the financial interests, not -of New York only but of the country at large. Going to London, he persuaded the officials of the Bank of England to loan £1,000,000 sterling (with the guaranty of Baring Brothers) to be distributed among the New York banks. The consignment was made to Prime, Ward & King and the responsibility for handling the money fell chiefly to the junior partner. So wisely was the apportionment made that the operation was a complete success, resulting in the resumption of specie payments in May 1838, with prompt repayment of the loan to the Bank of England. King's repeated election as president of the New York Chamber of Commerce is some indication of his standing in the business community during. that period, and the frequent references to him in Philip Hone's diary represent him as a leading spirit in the select social circles that foregathered on Manhattan Island in the early nineteenth century.

Meanwhile, King, with his brothers, had become interested in Whig politics, and having established a residence in New Jersey, where he had a home on the heights of Weehawken, he was elected to Congress in 1848. He served only one term, as a minority member of the House, his brother John holding a New York seat at the same time. He voted against the fugitive slave bill and the other compromise measures of 1850, and did what he could to uphold the Taylor administration. On February 4, 1813, he married Sarah Rogers Gracie, daughter of Archibald Gracie, and sister of Eliza, his brother Charles's wife. She with four daughters and three sons survived him.

[W. W. Spooner, Historic Families of America (n.d.); E. H. Mott, Between the Ocean and the Lakes, The. Story of the Erie (1899); Chas. King, "James Gore King," in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, January 1854, reprinted in Freeman Hunt, Lives of American Merchants (1858), Volume I; J. A. Scoville, The Old Merchants of New York, volumes I-III (1863-65); The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King (6 volumes, 1894-1900), ed. by C. R. King; George Wilson, Portrait Gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York (1890); Bayard Tuckerman, The Diary of Philip Hone (2 volumes, 1889); New York Tribune, October 5, 1853.]

W. B. S.


KING, Preston, 1806-1865, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, politician.  Son of founding father Rufus King.  Opponent of the extension of slavery into the new territories acquired from Mexico after 1846.  Supporter of the Wilmot Proviso in Congress.  Co-founder of Free Soil Party.  Opposed the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854.  U.S. Senator, 1857-1863.  Supported Lincoln and the Union.  Later organized Republican Party and supported William H. Seward, Thurlow Weed and John Frémont. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 12, p. 708; Encyclopaedia Americana, 1831, Volume VII, pp. 326-328; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 396)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 396-397:

KING, PRESTON (October 14, 1806-November 13, 1865), politician, was born in Ogdensburg, New York, the son of John King and Margaret Galloway. His elementary education obtained in Ogdensburg was followed by a classical course in Union College where he graduated with honors in 1827. He passed the bar after a study of the law in Silas Wright's office. In 1830 he established the St. Lawrence Republican. He was a Democrat from principle and became a dogged, uncompromising Jacksonian. Through Wright's influence he served as postmaster at Ogdensburg from 1831 to 1834 at which time he was elected to the Assembly. He was hostile toward the movement to finance internal improvements at government expense and thought Whiggery was an extension of Federalism, neither of which had accomplished any good. He won the confidence and respect of his party before he became involved in the Canadian Rebellion of 1837-38. The imprisonment of some of his friends whom he had urged to participate in that war temporarily unbalanced his mind and he entered an asylum in Hartford, Connecticut, after his fourth term in the Assembly. He recovered rapidly, however, returned to politics, and entered Congress in 1843. Having long opposed the extension of slavery, he broke with the majority of his party in 1846, when he advised Wilmot to introduce his Proviso and then gave it his powerful support. He participated in the Free Soil convention at Buffalo in 1848 and supported Van Buren. He was not a candidate for election to the Thirtieth Congress, but he was elected in 1848 as a Free Sailer and was reelected in 1850. He was strong in his opposition to the Fugitive-slave Law. In 1852 he supported Pierce for President but later turned against him and the party, because of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and allied himself with its opponents. He urged the nomination of Fremont and was himself considered for the vice-presidential nomination by the Philadelphia convention in 1856. In 1857 he entered the Senate where he severely denounced Buchanan as being "false to his high trust" (Congressional Globe, 35 Congress, 1 Session, p. 1134). He proposed to establish agricultural land grant colleges in every state, but he failed to secure the passage of such a bill. The idea of secession was repugnant to him, although he advocated state rights in preference to extreme centralization. He refused to support any proposed compromises with the South in 1860, and he ardently supported Lincoln in his war policies. At the expiration of his term in 1863 he returned to his law practice. He acted as chairman of the National Committee of the Republican party from 1860 to 1864 and served as a delegate in the Republican Convention at Baltimore where he urged the nomination of Johnson for vice-president. After the latter became president, he appointed King collector of customs in New York City (August 15, 1865). King accepted the office, for which he believed himself wholly unfitted, only upon the earnest insistence of Weed. An invasion of office-seekers and the fear that he might fail to perform his duties satisfactorily caused another mental aberration. He tied a bag of shot about his body and slipped off a Hoboken ferry-boat. His remains were buried near the graves of his father and mother at Ogdensburg, New York, in May 1866. He had never married.

[D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, Volume II (1906); Autobiography of Thurlow Weed (1884), ed. by Harriet A. Weed; C. B. Going, David Wilmot, Free Soiler (1924); H. D. A. Donovan, The Barnburners (1925); Diary of Gideon Welles (3 volumes, 1911); S. W. Durant and H. B. Pierce, History of St. Lawrence County, New York (1878); obituary notices in the World (New York), November 15, 16, 1865, and the New York Tribune, November 15, 1865. ]

W. E. S-h.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III:

KING, Preston, senator, born in Ogdensburg, New York, 14 October, 1806; drowned in Hudson river, 12 November, 1865. He was graduated at Union in 1827, studied law, and practised in St. Lawrence county, New York. He entered politics in early life, was a strong friend of Silas Wright, and an admirer of Andrew Jackson, and established the “St. Lawrence Republican” at Ogdensburg in 1830, in support of the latter. He was for a time postmaster there, and in 1834-'7 a member of the state assembly. He was a representative in congress in 1843-'7 and in 1849-'53, having been elected as a Democrat, but in 1854 joined the Republican party, was its candidate for secretary of state in 1855, and in 1857-'63 served as U. S. senator. Early in 1861, in the debate on the naval appropriation bill, Mr. King said that the Union could not be destroyed peaceably, and was one of the first to give his opinion thus plainly. In closing, he said: “I tell these gentlemen, in my judgment this treason must come to an end—peacefully, I hope; but never, in my judgment, peacefully by the ignominious submission of the people of this country to traitors—never. I desire peace, but I would amply provide means for the defence of the country by war, if necessary.” After the expiration of his term, Mr. King resumed the practice of law in New York city. He was a warm friend of Andrew Johnson, and, as a member of the Baltimore convention of 1864, did much to secure his nomination for the vice-presidency. After his accession to the presidency, Mr. Johnson appointed Mr. King collector of the port of New York. Financial troubles and the responsibilities of his office unsettled his mind, and he committed suicide by jumping from a ferry-boat into the Hudson river. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III.


KING, Reverend William, clergyman.  Scotch Presbyterian minister.  Founded Colony of Former Slaves in Kent County under the Elgin Association.  Took slaves to Canada. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 337)


KING, Rufus, 1775-1827, Massachusetts, statesman, founding father, lawyer, diplomat, soldier, early opponent of slavery.  Member of the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  U.S. Congressional Representative and U.S. Senator.  Wrote clause in Northwest Ordinance excluding slavery from Northwest Territories.  It stated, in part, “that there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the states,” and that this should “remain a fundamental principle of the Constitution…”  As a Senator in 1819, he opposed the admission of Missouri as a slave state.  King entered proposals in the Senate to abolish slavery.  His son was anti-slavery activist John Alsop King. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 542-543; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 398-400; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 38, 40, 103, 131-132; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 93, 158n; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 12, p. 713)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 398-400:

KING, RUFUS (March 24, 1755-April 29, 1827), Federalist statesman and minister to Great Britain, was born in Scarboro, Maine. (then part of Massachusetts), the eldest son of Captain Richard King, a successful merchant, and his first wife, Isabella (Bragdon) King. At the age of twelve he was sent to Dummer Academy, South Byfield, Massachusetts, under Master Samuel Moody, and then entered Harvard, graduating in the class of 1777. He studied law at Newburyport, Massachusetts, under Theophilus Parsons [q. v.], incidentally acquiring some military experience as aide to General Glover during General Sullivan's brief and ill-fated expedition to Rhode Island. Admitted to the bar in 1780, he opened an office in Newburyport. As a delegate to the Massachusetts General Court from that town in 1783, 1784, and 1785, he showed himself to be "a man of business, a ready debater, and a pleasing orator" (J. B. McMaster, A History of the People of the United States, I, 1883, p. 359), and won a place of leadership by favoring a bill granting a five per cent impost to the Continental Congress.

For three successive years, from 1784 to 1786, he was elected by the legislature as a delegate to Congress, then sitting in Trenton, New Jersey. As a member, he moved, March 16, 1785, a resolution providing that there should be neither "slavery nor involuntary servitude" in the section to be known as the Northwest Territory, The phrase employed by King was later incorporated in the Ordinance of 1787, which was drafted in part by him but introduced in Congress by his colleague, Nathan Dane, while King was serving in the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia. As chairman of a committee on finances, he offered a report (February 15, 1786) urging all the states to contribute toward federal expenses, and he was sent, with James Monroe, on an unsuccessful mission to persuade the Pennsylvania legislature to emulate Massachusetts in granting Congress a five per cent impost. Although he was already recognized as a brilliant speaker, he broke down in the midst of his prepared address and had to ask Monroe to take his place. An hour later, however, he rose and delivered extemporaneously what he always declared to be the best speech he ever made. During this period also King sat upon a commission to adjust the boundary between Massachusetts and New York.

In the Constitutional Convention, which opened May 14, 1787, King was probably the most eloquent orator. Although he had at first been fearful of the dangers which might arise from such an assembly and had been opposed to any radical action in altering the Articles of Confederation, his opinions underwent a change, and he was found during the debates arguing in favor of a vigorous central government. He was on the committee which revised the style and arranged the order of the final draft of the Constitution, and he was one of its signers. In the Massachusetts convention for ratification, as a delegate from Newburyport, he courageously pleaded for its adoption, and his logic and fervor, as well as his familiarity with the provisions of the document, were of vital assistance in securing the approval of his state.

Before the federal government was organized, King, having married, March 30, 1786, Mary Alsop, only daughter of a wealthy New York merchant, had moved to New York City and abandoned the practice of law. Shortly after his arrival, he was elected to the New York Assembly and was soon chosen by the legislature, July 16, 1789, as United States senator from that state, his colleague being General Philip Schuyler. King, who was fortunate enough to draw the long term, became perhaps the ablest Federalist in the Senate, upholding Alexander Hamilton in all his financial measures. Of the Jay Treaty, negotiated in 1794 with England, he was an earnest advocate, and he joined with Hamilton and Jay in publishing, under the signature of "Camillus," a series of papers explaining its details, King's share being a discussion of commercial matters and maritime law, on which he was an authority. He was elected in 1791 as a director of the Bank of the United States, which he had labored assiduously to create. He was chosen for a second senatorial term, January 27, 1795, by a small majority in each branch of the legislature.

Washington, after some hesitation, named King as minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, succeeding Thomas Pinckney, in 1796. In recommending him to the President, Hamilton described him as "a remarkably well informed mail, a very judicious one, a man of address, a man of fortune and economy, whose situation affords just ground of confidence" (The Life mid Correspondence of Rufus King, VI, p. 680). King completely justified the hopes of his sponsors and is said to have been "one of the most effective representatives the United States ever had at London" (Edward Channing, A History of the United States, IV, 1917, 353). Arriving in London, July 23, 1796, at a moment when issues of a critical nature were arising almost daily between the two nations, King, by firm yet tactful diplomacy, averted any open breach. He concluded in 1803 two important conventions with the Addington ministry, and he even felt, probably too optimistically, that, if he could have remained a few months longer, he might have persuaded Great Britain to abandon her policy of impressment. He was, however, relieved at his own request in 1803 and returned to the United States. In the autumn of 1804 he was by general agreement the Federalist candidate for vice-president with Charles C. Pinckney as the presidential nominee, but they received only fourteen electoral votes-from Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland-and were overwhelmed by Jefferson and Clinton. Being out of sympathy with the Jefferson administration he settled on an estate in Jamaica, Long Island, where he interested himself in agriculture, imported a herd of Devon cattle, and kept up an extensive correspondence. In 1808 Pinckney and King were again nominated and were given forty-seven electoral votes-all New England, except Vermont, going for the Federalist nominees.

Like a true Federalist, King did not approve of the War of 1812, and when he was again elected in 1813 to the United States Senate from New York, he became the leader of the nine opposition members in that body. He made a fiery speech against the abandonment of the city of Washington after the British had burned the Capitol in 1814; and, when it became evident that the war had become one of defense, he sanctioned measures for its vigorous prosecution, thus winning the respect of his opponents for his patriotic attitude. He was suggested frequently by Republican newspapers as a possible secretary of state, the hope being that he might persuade his Federalist followers to join him in standing by the administration. In the presidential election in 1816, he won the votes of all 0 the Federalist electors, representing Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware, and thus received 34 votes to Monroe's 183. He had joined Webster, then in the House of Representatives, in opposing the establishment of the second Bank of the United States; and he was the author of the Navigation Act of 1818. He studied carefully the problem of the public lands and carried through a measure providing that they should be sold for cash, at a lower price than before. In 1820 he was reelected by the New York legislature, although the majority of the members differed with him politically. The following year he was a member of the New York constitutional convention.

During his last term in the Senate he took a decisive stand on negro slavery. He resisted the admission of Missouri as a state, with slavery, and opposed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 on the ground that it merely prolonged the controversy and postponed its adjustment. He argued that further extension of slavery would be unfair to the free states and fatal to their welfare. For the abolition of slavery he proposed applying the proceeds of the sale of the public lands toward the emancipation of negroes and toward their removal to some territory outside of the national borders. Upon the expiration of his term King declined a reelection. He had suffered badly from the gout. But his desire to resume private life was overcome by the insistence of President John Quincy Adams that he should once more accept the ministry to the Court of St. James's. Shortly after his arrival in Liverpool, June 26, 1825, he was taken ill and was obliged to return to America the following summer. Within a year he died, worn out by the exhausting demands of a long and creditable career in the service of his country. He was buried in the cemetery of Grace Church, in Jamaica.

In the estimation of one who knew him well, King "had the appearance of one who was a gentleman by nature and had improved all her gifts" (William Sullivan, Familiar Letters on Public Characters and Public Events, 2nd ed., 1834, p. 21), but he was sometimes thought to be haughty and austere in manner. The existing portraits of him by John Trumbull, Gilbert Stuart, and Charles W. Peale would indicate that he was handsome. The testimony as to his ability is ample. Jeremiah Mason, King's colleague in the Senate, thought him to be "the most able man and the greatest orator" he had ever met (Memoir, Autobiography and Correspondence of Jerimiah Mason, 1917, p. 57). Webster wrote of him, February 5, 1814, to his brother Ezekiel: "You never heard such a speaker. In strength, and dignity, and fire; in ease, in natural effect, and gesture as well as in matter, he is unequalled" (The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, National Edition, 1903, XVII, 241). During a long and stormy political career, he never had a serious quarrel nor was there the slightest imputation against his public or private life. He reared a notable family of children of whom several attained distinction, among them being John Alsop, Charles, and James Gore King [qq.v.].

The standard authority on Rufus King is The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King (6 volumes, 1894- 1900), edited by his grandson, Charles R. King. Other sources include: C. E. Fitch, Encyclopedia of Biography of New York (1916), I, 34-37; W. W. Spooner, Historical Families of America (n.d.); Autobiography of Martin Van Buren (1920), published as Volume II of the annual reports of the American History Association for the year 1918; D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, Volume I (1906); Max Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (3 volumes, 1911); D.R. Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York (1919); E. H. Brush, Rufus King and His Times (1926).]

C.M.F.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

KING, Rufus, statesman, born in Scarborough, Maine, in 1755; died in New York city, 29 April, 1827. He was the eldest son of Richard King, a successful merchant of Scarborough, and was graduated at Harvard in 1777, having continued his studies while the college buildings were occupied for military purposes. He then studied law with Theophilus Parsons at Newburyport. While so engaged, in 1778, he became aide to General Sullivan in his expedition to Rhode Island, and after its unsuccessful issue was honorably discharged. In due time he was admitted to the bar, where he took high rank, and was sent in 1783 to the general court of Massachusetts. Here he was active in the discussion of public measures, and especially in carrying against powerful opposition the assent of the legislature to grant the 5-per-cent impost to the congress of the confederation, which was requisite to enable it to insure the common safety. In 1784, by an almost unanimous vote of the legislature, Mr. King was sent a delegate to the old congress, sitting at Trenton, and again in 1785 and 1786. In this body, in 1785, he moved “that there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the states described in the resolution of congress in April, 1784, otherwise than in punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been personally guilty; and that this regulation shall be made an article of compact, and remain a fundamental principle of the constitution between the original states and each of the states named in the said resolve.” Though this was not at the time acted upon, the principle was finally adopted almost word for word in the famous ordinance of 1787 for the government of the northwestern territory, a provision which had been prepared by Mr. King, and which was introduced into congress by Nathan Dane, his colleague, while Mr. King was engaged in Philadelphia as a member from Massachusetts of the convention to form a constitution for the United States. He was also appointed by his state to the commissions to settle the boundaries between Massachusetts and New York, and to convey to the United States lands lying west of the Alleghanies. While in congress in 1786 he was sent with James Monroe to urge upon the legislature of Pennsylvania the payment of the 5-per-cent impost, but was not so successful as he had been in Massachusetts. In 1787 Mr. King was appointed one of the delegates from his state to the convention at Philadelphia to establish a more stable government for the United States. In this body he bore a conspicuous and able part. He was one of the members to whom was assigned the duty of making a final draft of the constitution of the United States. When the question of its adoption was submitted to the states, Mr. King was sent to the Massachusetts convention, and, although the opposition to it was carried on by most of the chief men of the state, his familiarity with its provisions, his clear explanation of them, and his earnest and eloquent statement of its advantages, contributed greatly to bring about its final adoption. Mr. King had now given up the practice of law, and having in 1786 married Mary, the daughter of John Alsop, a deputy from New York to the first Continental congress, he took up his residence in New York in 1788. The next year he was elected to the assembly of the state, and while serving in that body “received the unexampled welcome of an immediate election with Schuyler to the senate” of the United States. In this body he was rarely absent from his seat, and did much to put the new government into successful operation. One of the grave questions that arose was that of the ratification of the Jay treaty with Great Britain in 1794. Of this he was an earnest advocate, and when he and his friend General Hamilton were prevented from explaining its provisions to the people in public meeting in New York, they united in publishing, under the signature of “Camillus,” a series of explanatory papers, of which those relating to commercial affairs and maritime law were written by Mr. King. This careful study laid the foundation of much of the readiness and ability that he manifested during his residence in England as U. S. minister, to which post, while serving his second term in the senate, he was appointed by General Washington in 1796, and in which he continued during the administration of John Adams and two years of that of Thomas Jefferson. The contingencies arising from the complicated condition of affairs, political and commercial, between Great Britain and her continental neighbors, required careful handling in looking after the interests of his country; and Mr. King, by his firm and intelligent presentation of the matters intrusted to him, did good service to his country and assisted largely to raise it to consideration and respect. In 1803 he was relieved, at his own request, from his office, and, returning to this country, removed to Jamaica, L. I. There, in the quiet of a country life, he interested himself in agriculture, kept up an extensive correspondence with eminent men at home and abroad, and enriched his mind by careful and varied reading. He was opposed on principle to the war of 1812 with England, when it was finally declared, but afterward gave to the government his support, both by money and by his voice in private and in the U. S. senate, to which he was again elected in 1813. In 1814 he made an eloquent appeal against the proposed desertion of Washington after the British had burned the capitol. In 1816, without his knowledge, he was nominated as governor of New York, but was defeated, as he was also when a candidate of the Federal party for the presidency against James Monroe. During this senatorial term he opposed the establishment of a national bank with $50,000,000 capital; and, while resisting the efforts of Great Britain to exclude the United States from the commerce of the West Indies, contributed to bring about the passage of the navigation act of 1818. The disposal of the public lands by sales on credit was found to be fraught with much danger. Mr. King was urgent in calling attention to this, and introduced and carried a bill directing that they should be sold for cash, at a lower price, and under other salutary restrictions. In 1819 he was again elected to the senate by a legislature that was opposed to him in politics as before. Mr. King resisted the admission of Missouri with slavery, and his speech on that occasion, though only briefly reported, contained this carefully prepared statement: “Mr. President, I approach a very delicate subject. I regret the occasion that renders it necessary for me to speak of it, because it may give offence where none is intended. But my purpose is fixed. Mr. President, I have yet to learn that one man can make a slave of another. If one man cannot do so, no number of individuals can have any better right to do it. And I hold that all laws or compacts imposing any such condition upon any human being are absolutely void, because contrary to the law of nature, which is the law of God, by which he makes his ways known to man, and is paramount to all human control.” He was equally opposed to the compromise offered by Mr. Clay on principle, and because it contained the seeds of future troubles. Upon the close of this senatorial term he put upon record, in the senate, a resolution which he fondly hoped might provide a way for the final extinction of slavery. It was to the effect that, whenever that part of the public debt for which the public lands were pledged should have been paid, the proceeds of all future sales should be held as a fund to be used to aid the emancipation of such slaves, and the removal of them and of free persons of color, as by the laws of the states might I be allowed to any I territory beyond the limits of the United States. His purpose to retire to private life was thwarted by an urgent invitation from John Quincy Adams, in 1825, to accept the mission to Great Britain. Mr. King reluctantly acquiesced and sailed for England, where he was cordially received, but after a few months he was obliged, through failing health, to return home. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, pp. 542-543.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

RUFUS KING, the eldest son of Richard King, a wealthy merchant of Scarborough, Maine, was born in the year 1755. After having received a good common school education, he was placed under the care of Mr. Samuel Moody, an eminent classical teacher at Byfield. 

He removed to Harvard college in 1773, where he continued until the commencement of the war of independence, when the students were dispersed, and the college was occupied several months by the American troops. During this interval, Mr. King pursued his studies with his former teacher, at Byfield. In 1777, he returned to college, and graduated with great reputation, as a classical scholar, and as an orator of extraordinary powers. He immediately commenced the study of law at Newburyport, under the late chief justice of Massachusetts, Theophilus Parsons, and was admitted to practice in 1780.

For a short period, in 1778, he took the field as a volunteer, and served as an aid to General Glover, in the enterprise conducted by General Sullivan against the British on Rhode Island.

Mr. King made his debut at the bar, as adverse counsel to his great instructor, Parsons. Undaunted by the gigantic powers of his antagonist, he put forth his efforts with the skillfulness of an experienced lawyer, and exhibited so successfully his talents as an orator, that he at once opened for himself the path to future eminence. He was soon after elected a representative from Newburyport, to the legislature of Massachusetts. While he was a member of that body, in 1784, congress recommended to the several states to. vest in the general government " full authority to regulate their commerce, both external and internal, and to impose such duties as might be necessary for that purpose." In the debate which followed, Mr. King supported the grant, and prevailed. This was one of the earliest instances in which the line of distinction was strongly marked, between the federal and state interests.

In the same year (1784), he was elected as a delegate to congress, and took his seat as a member of that body, then in session at Trenton, and never after resumed his practice at the bar. He was reelected to the same station, the two following years.

On the 16th of March, 1785, Mr. King brought forward and advocated the passage of the resolution by which slavery was prohibited in the territory north-west of the Ohio.

As a member of the convention held in Philadelphia, in 1787, for the purpose of revising the articles of confederation, and for his labors in the Massachusetts convention, to consider and decide on its adoption, Mr. King is entitled to the lasting gratitude of every American. Next to that venerated conclave, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, that wise and patriotic body who framed the present constitution of the United States is worthy of our reverence. Those who are familiar with the history of the American government, from the peace of 1783 to 1788, will sustain this opinion. As has been correctly said by a late writer,[1]

"The history of the world records no case of more intense interest, than that which pervaded the United States, in 1788. Thirteen independent sovereignties, seriously alarmed for their preservation against each other, more alarmed with the apprehension that they might give up the liberty which they had gained with the utmost exertion of mind and body from foreign tyranny, to one of their own creation, within their own limits, called into the deliberative assemblies of the time all the able men of the country. Some union of the states was admitted by all to be indispensable; but in what manner it was to be effected, what powers should be given, and what powers reserved--how these should be modified, checked, and balanced, -- were points on which honest men might zealously contend. Here was a case, in which a whole people, unawed by any foreign power, in peace with all the world, sorely experienced in what may be the exercise of civil authority, dependent on no will but their own, convinced of the necessity of forming some government, were called on to settle, by peaceful agreement among themselves, the most important questions which can be presented to the human mind."

The great question of all was, as Washington said, "whether we were to survive as an independent republic, or decline from our federal dignity into insignificant and wretched fragments of empire." The old government by experiment had been proved to be inefficient; the embarrassment of debt which it could not command the means to pay, and the necessity of foreign treaties which it could not effectually guaranty, exposed the country to distrust and contempt abroad, and to tumults and distress at home. Mr. King, having been in congress three years, knew the imbecility of the national government and the necessity of a revision. A convention to deliberate on the subject was recommended by some of the state legislatures, and congress gave it their sanction by a similar recommendation on motion of the Massachusetts delegation, then consisting of Mr. Dana and Mr. King. He attended with the convention during their whole session, took a large share in the discussion and formation of the new constitution, and was a member of the committee appointed to prepare the final draft of that instrument. When it was referred to the several states for ratification, Mr. King was sent to the state convention by his constituents of Newburyport.[2]  In this assembly he distinguished himself by his intimate knowledge of the subject1 the weight of his arguments, and the popular style of his oratory.

Soon after this, Mr. King removed to the city of New York. He had, in 1786, married Miss Alsop, the only child of John Alsop, an opulent merchant of that city, and one of the delegates from New York to the first continental congress. In 1789, he was chosen a member of the legislature; and during its extra session, in the summer of that year, he and General Schuyler were elected the first senators in congress from that state.

During the great excitement which was caused by the promulgation of the British treaty, in 1794, Mr. King appeared by the side of his friend, General Hamilton, at a public meeting of the citizens of New York. But their attempts to explain and defend it, were refused. They then endeavored to reach the public mind through the press, and jointly wrote a series of papers, under the signature of Camillus; the first ten numbers of which were from the pen of Hamilton, the remainder of the series were written by Mr. king.

About this period, a petition was presented to the senate of the United States, by some citizens of Pennsylvania, in which it was alleged that Albert Gallatin, who had recently been elected a senator from that state, was not qualified to take his seat, in consequence of his not having been naturalized a sufficient number of years. A warm controversy ensued. Mr. Taylor of Virginia, Mr. Monroe, and Colonel Burr, maintained the right of the returned member to his seat; they were successfully opposed by Mr. Ellsworth, Mr. Story, and Mr. King, and their political friends. The speech of Mr. King on this occasion is said to have been one of the most powerful displays of eloquence produced in modern times.

In the spring of 1796, he was appointed by President Washington minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain. He continued at the English court through the administration of Mr. Adams, and for two years of the presidency of Mr. Jefferson. While abroad, he lived on intimate terms with the most eminent statesmen and literary characters; and by the mild dignity of his manners, and his talents and capacity for public business, he acquired and maintained a powerful personal influence, which he exerted to advance the interests of his country.

Many important subjects were adjusted to the satisfaction of both nations, particularly the Maryland claim, which was finally settled by a convention, in which the British government agreed to pay £600,000. But the most important negotiation in which he was engaged was that which related to the impressment of American seamen. During the war between Great Britain and France, he had been unwearied in urging that great grievance upon the attention of the ministry, and finally succeeded in obtaining their assent to the principles of an agreement; but the peace of 1801 terminated the practice complained of, and the negotiation together. In 1802, a convention was agreed to by the British government relative to the boundary lines of the United States; but it was rejected by the president, and the subject still remains unadjusted.

Mr. King had requested permission to return to his own country, when the war between France and Great Britain was renewed. He then made another effort to prevent a revival of the practice of impressment, and on the 7th of May, 1803, he submitted the following article: 
"No person shall be impressed or taken on the high seas, out of any ship or vessel belonging to the subjects or citizens of one of the parties, by the public or private armed ships or men of war belonging to, or in the service of, the other party."

To this article Lord St. Vincent, the first lord of the admiralty, and Lord Hawkesbury, the secretary of state for foreign affairs, at first assented; but after a consultation with Sir William Scott, an exception was required in favor of the narrow seas. Mr. King, after deliberately considering the proposal, determined to reject it. After his return home, he, continued in retirement at his farm on Long Island, until the war of 1812, when he came forward and offered his services in support of the cause of his country. The following extract from a pamphlet ascribed to the pen of Mr. Van Buren, is alike honorable to the writer and to Mr. King.

"At this momentous crisis, which applied the touchstone to the hearts of men, when many of the stoutest were appalled, and the weak despaired of the republic, Mr. King was neither idle nor dismayed. His love of country dispelled his attachments to party. In terms of the warmest solicitude and in strains of the most impassioned eloquence, he remonstrated in his correspondence with the leaders of the opposition in this state and in the east, on the folly, the madness, and the mischief of their course; he contributed largely of his means to the loans to government; he infused confidence into the desponding, and labored to divest the timid of their fears; he sought Governor Tompkins, to whom, from the warmth of his devotion to his country's cause, and from the plenitude of his responsibility, rather than of his powers, every eye was directed, and to him Mr. King communicated the patriotic ardor with which he was himself animated.

"The purport and object of his interesting interview with the governor, is thus described by the latter: ' Venerable and patriotic citizens, such as Colonel Rutgers, Colonel Willet, Governor Wolcott, Mr. King, and others, animated me to the greatest efforts; the latter gentleman in an interview with me was peculiarly impressive: he said that the time had arrived when every good citizen was bound to put his all at the requisition of government, that he was ready to do this, that the people of the state of New York would and must hold me personally responsible for its safety. I acquainted him with the difficulties under which I had struggled for the two preceding years, the various instances in which I had been already compelled to act without law or legislative indemnity, and urged, that if I should once more exert myself to meet all the emergencies and pecuniary difficulties with which we were pressed, I must inevitably min myself. "Well, sir," added he with that enthusiasm which genius lends to patriotism, " what is the ruin of an individual compared with the safety of the republic 1 If you are ruined, you will have the consolation of enjoying the gratitude of your fellow citizens; but you must trust to the magnanimity and justice of your country, you must transcend the law, you must save this city and state from the danger with which they are menaced, you must ruin yourself if it become necessary, and I pledge you my honor that I will support you in whatever you do."' Having done all in his power to induce to exertions at home, Mr. King repaired to his post in the senate of the United States. and in that body zealously supported the prominent measures of the administration to sustain the country in the severe struggle in which she was engaged."

In consequence of the decided stand which Mr. King had taken at the commencement of the war, the legislature, in 1813, elected him to the senate of the United States for six years. In 1819, the legislature of the state of New York was divided into three political parties, each having a candidate for the vacant seat in the senate of the nation. Neither candidate could obtain a majority, consequently there was no election. At the session in 1820, Mr. King was reelected, with only three dissenting votes in the two branches of the legislature. It was to promote this election that the pamphlet quoted above was published.

It has been remarked (Annual Register, 1826-'7) that, "Mr. King was one of those senators whom no habit of opposition to administration, and no arbitrary classification of supposed claims of party, could induce to a forgetfulness that the United States was his country, and that the rights and the honor of that country he ought to support and maintain. It has been observed that the conduct of the enemy in their destruction of Washington, tended to unite all parties in America. The speech of Mr. King in the senate on this occasion, while it may compare with any of his former efforts in eloquence, has the rare and enviable distinction of being approved and applauded for its sentiments also, by the whole nation."

The principal measures originated by Mr. King in the senate are, the law requiring cash payments upon sales of the public lands; and the act of 1818, on which is founded the navigation system of the United States.
The most unpopular act of Mr. King's political life was the part he took in the discussion of the celebrated slavery-question on the admission of Missouri to the rank of a state. An allusion to this subject is all that is necessary in this place.

At the termination of his second term in the senate, he intended to close his political career; but, in the hope of contributing to the adjustment of some disputed questions between the United States and Great Britain, he accepted the mission offered him by President Adams, and once more took up his residence near the British court. He was received by Mr. Canning and the other ministers with a marked and respectful attention. But his health was impaired to such a degree, that he was unable to attend to business; and after spending a year in England, he returned to his native land, and died on the 29th of April, 1827.

Mr. King's political sentiments were settled in early life, by the circumstances of his country. He was a federalist from the birth of the party, but he acted independently on the great questions which successively came under discussion. The consequence of his independent course necessarily was, that he became by turns a favorite with all parties, or an object of attack and virulent denunciation. These effects of party strife, however, will not deprive his name of that measure of honorable distinction to which our brief sketch is sufficient to show it is fairly entitled. J. H.


KING, Rufus (January 26, 1814-October 13, 1876), soldier, editor, diplomat.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 400-401:

KING, RUFUS (January 26, 1814-October 13, 1876), soldier, editor, diplomat, was born in New York City, the son of Charles [q. v.] and Eliza (Gracie) King, and grand son of Rufus King [q. v.]. He attended the preparatory department of Columbia College, entered the United States Military Academy, West Point, July 1, 1829, graduated in 1833, and was commissioned in the corps of engineers. Resigning, September 30, 1836, because he felt that the army in peace time offered little opportunity for a career, he became assistant engineer in surveying for the New York & Erie Railroad, of which his uncle, James Gore King [q.v.], was president. In 1839 he went to Albany and was editor of the Albany Daily Advertiser until 1841, after which year till 1845 he was associated with Thurlow Weed in editing the Albany Evening Journal. From 1839 to 1843 he was adjutant-general of New York under Governor William H. Seward and commanded the troops called out to suppress the anti-rent disturbances.

Removing to Milwaukee in 1845, he became part owner and editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette (later the Milwaukee Sentinel). In 1857 he sold his share but remained as editor until 1861. He made the paper one of the leading journals of the Northwest. He himself engaged actively in many public affairs. He was a leader in the fight to defeat the first constitution proposed for Wisconsin (1846), and was an influential member of the second convention which framed the constitution adopted in 1848. Especially interested in education, he served for years as superintendent of schools of Milwaukee without the title or compensation, and was formally superintendent, 1859-60. He was an earnest proponent of "free instruction in all the institutions of the state, from the primary schools to the university," and was one of the first regents of the University of Wisconsin (1848-54).

His old friend, Secretary Seward, secured his appointment, March 22, 1861, as minister to the Papal States, but as he was about to sail for Rome, Fort Sumter was fired upon. He returned to Washington and on May 17, 1861, was commissioned a brigadier-general, organized the famous "Iron Brigade," and served in the defenses of Washington until March 1862, when he was given a division. On August 28, 1862, near Gainesville, his division, a part of Pope's army, was unexpectedly attacked by Stonewall Jackson with a large force. King held his ground until nightfall, then retreated. Next day Jackson and Lee united and defeated Pope in the battle of Manassas. After this disastrous engagement the false impression got abroad that King, when he retreated, disobeyed Pope's orders, and that he was therefore responsible for the junction of Jackson with Lee. "For long years he had to bear the stigma," says his son, General Charles King (post, p. 380), "and it ruined his health and broke his heart." He continued in the army until October 20, 1863, when ill health-he was a victim of epilepsy-forced him to resign.  

He had, on October 7, been reappointed minister to Rome. While there he apprehended John H. Surratt, implicated in the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln and Seward, who had fled to Italy. In 1867 Congress failed to appropriate funds for continuing the mission at the Papal Court on what King called "the alleged but erroneous grounds that the Pope refuses to permit Protestant worship within the walls of Rome" (Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, 1867, pt. 1, p. 708). King protested, but Congress at its next session having again made no appropriation for the continuance of the mission, he resigned January 1, 1868. He served as deputy collector of customs for the port of New York until 1869, when ill health compelled his retirement from public life. In 1836 he married Ellen Eliot, who died in 1838; in 1843 he married her sister Susan, by whom he had a son and a daughter.

[W. W; Spooner, Historic Families of America (n.d.); Charles King, in Wisconsin Magazine of History, June 1921; Wisconsin History Society Collections, Volume XXVIII (1920), Volume XXIX (1928); files of the Milwaukee Sentinel, 1845-61; G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy, Volume I (3rd ed., 1891); War of the Rebellion, Official Records (Army), 1 series XII, pt. 1; Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, 1866, pt. 2, pp. 127ff., 1867, pt. 1, pp. 69,ff.; Milwaukee Sentinel, October 14, 1876; information from General Charles King.]

W. E. M.


KING, Thomas Starr (December 17, 1824- March 4, 1864), Unitarian clergyman, lecturer, and writer. “When the Civil War came and with it the danger of California's secession from the Union and the formation of a Pacific republic, his arguments and patriotic appeals were a powerful factor in keeping the state loyal. He was the mainstay of the United States Sanitary Commission in California”.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 403-405:

KING, THOMAS STARR (December 17, 1824- March 4, 1864), Unitarian clergyman, lecturer, and writer, was of German, French, and English descent. His mother's father, Thomas Starr, was a native of the Rhineland, but was brought by his father to America in the latter part of the eighteenth century, where he married a woman of French extraction, Mary Lavinus. Starr King, as he was commonly called, was the oldest child of their daughter Susan and Reverend Thomas Farrington King, a Universalist minister, of English ancestry. The boy was born in New York while his mother was on a visit to her parents. His father, then in charge of a circuit in Connecticut, was living in Norwalk, but soon settled in Hudson, New York. In 1828 he, removed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and seven years later became pastor of the Universalist society in Charlestown, Massachusetts. In Portsmouth and Charlestown Thomas had all the formal schooling which he ever received. Before he was fifteen years old and while he was preparing for college, the physical breakdown and subsequent death of his father compelled him to help support the family, which now included five younger children. He first worked as clerk and bookkeeper in a drygoods store, but in December 1840, although barely sixteen, he was appointed assistant teacher in the Bunker Hill Grammar School, Charlestown. Two years later he became principal of the West Grammar School, Medford. Because of the larger compensation offered and the prospect of more leisure time, in 1843 he accepted the position of bookkeeper in the Charlestown Navy Yard.

The responsibilities laid upon his youthful shoulders interrupted his schooling but not his education. He gathered knowledge from every side with the spontaneity and delight of a child at play. Having an agile and retentive mind, he absorbed the contents of books with great rapidity. He gathered his acquaintances together for reading, debate, and dramatics, and attended lectures in Boston and Cambridge. At seventeen he was deep in metaphysics, and astonished older men by his quick understanding of abstruse problems. Edwin H. Chapin, the younger Hosea Ballou, and Theodore Parker [qq.v.] became his advisers and friends. Meeting him in Medford, Parker wrote in his diary under date of April 13, 1843: "Saw Schoolmaster Thomas Starr King,-capital fellow, only nineteen. Taught school three years. Supports his mother .. .. Reads French, Spanish, Latin, Italian, a little Greek, and begins German. He is a good listener." (Quoted by Frothingham, post.) From his earliest years onward, he captivated all who met him. "Slight of build, golden haired, with a homely mouth which everyone thought beautiful on account of the beaming eyes, the winning smile, and the earnest desire of always wanting to do what was best and right," is the portrait drawn by one of his schoolmasters (Simonds, post, p. 4). A generous disposition, sunny temperament, and almost rollicking mirthfulness were also a part of his attractiveness. Soon he began to preach, for from boyhood he had considered no calling but the ministry, and people were held by his clear thought, electric delivery, and rich, resounding voice. "He has the grace of God in his heart and the gift of tongues," wrote Parker (Ibid., p. 6). Later the rough settlers of California were equally charmed. "I say, Jim, stand on your toes and get a sight of him!" exclaimed an old miner to a companion as on the edge of a crowd they listened to one of his speeches in support of the Union: "Why, the boy is taking every trick" (Wendte, post, p. 196).

His first pastorate began in 1846 at the Universalist church, Charlestown, which his father had formerly served. Two years later he was installed over the Hollis Street Church, Unitarian, Boston; and on December 17, 1848, he married Julia Wiggin of East Boston. During his eleven years' stay he became one of the leading preachers of the city and one of the most popular Lyceum lecturers in the country, rivaling Beecher in his ability to draw large audiences. An enthusiastic lover of natural scenery, he did much to make the beauties of New Hampshire widely known through the publication in 1860 of an elaborate descriptive work, The White Hills, Their Legends, Landscapes, and Poetry. This same year he accepted a call to the struggling Unitarian parish in San Francisco. "We are unfaithful," he wrote to a friend, "in huddling so closely around the cosey stove of civilization in this blessed Boston, and I, for one, am ready to go out into the cold and see if I am good for anything" (Ibid., p. 69). People flocked to hear him preach and lecture. He soon freed his parish of a $20,000 debt and built a new church costing $90,000, to which amount he contributed $5,000 from the proceeds of his lectures. An enthusiastic explorer and mountain climber, he introduced the East to the beauties of the Pacific Coast through vivid letters to the Boston Transcript. When the Civil War came and with it the danger of California's secession from the Union and the formation of a Pacific republic, his arguments and patriotic appeals were a powerful factor in keeping the state loyal. He was the mainstay of the United States Sanitary Commission in California. According to a recent writer, "It was the eloquence of Starr King that saved the Commission's work from financial ruin. Of the total of $4,800,000 cash received from the country California alone supplied upwards of $1,234,000." (Rockwell D. Hunt and Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez, A Short History of California, copyrighted 1929, p. 526.) Unfortunately, his career was cut short in his fortieth year by an attack of diphtheria followed by pneumonia. In four years he had become one of the best known and most beloved men on the Pacific Coast. At the news of his death, places of business, the United States Mint, government offices, and the courts were closed. The state legislature adjourned for three days. In the East, Whittier, and in the West, Bret Harte, commemorated him in poems. His portrait was hung in the State House at Sacramento, and in resolutions passed by the legislature he is described as "the man whose matchless oratory saved California to, the Union." A monument was erected to him in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; a peak in the White Mountains and one in the Yosemite National Park are named for him; and in 1931 a statue, the gift of the state of California, was unveiled in the Capitol at Washington. A number of his sermons and ad dresses were published during his lifetime, and after his death there were issued Christianity and Humanity, A Series of Sermons (1877) and Substance and Show and Other Lectures (1877), both edited by Edwin P. Whipple, the former with a memoir.

[Richard Frothingham, A Tribute to Thomas Starr King (1865); C. D. Bradlee, The Life, Writings, and Character of Reverend Thomas Starr King (1870); H. W. Bellows, In Memory of Thomas Starr King (1864); Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators (1903); S. A. Eliot, Heralds of a Liberal Faith (1910), Volume III; C. W. Wendte, Thomas Starr King, Patriot and Preacher (1921); W. D. Simonds, Starr King in California (1917); Christian Register, March 12, April 9, 1864; Unitarian Review, December 1877; Boston Transcript, March s, 1864; Bulletin (San Francisco), March 4, 1864; San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 1931.]

H. E. S.


KINGSBURY, Harmon, Cleveland, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-39.


KINGSLEY, Alpheus, Norwich, Connecticut, abolitionist.  Manger, 1833-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


KINGSLEY, Calvin (September 8, 1812-April 6, 1870), bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. “At the  Methodist General Conference (1856), he was elected editor of the Western Christian Advocate, Cincinnati. The question of slavery was causing strife and division in the Church, and Kingsley made the Advocate aggressively anti-slavery. He was chairman of the committee on slavery at the General Conference of 1860, and presented and ably supported the substituted chapter in the Discipline, which admonished the membership of the Church to seek the ‘extirpation" of slavery’ by all lawful and Christian means."

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 410-411:

KINGSLEY, CALVIN (September 8, 1812-April 6, 1870), bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in Annsville, Oneida County, New York, the oldest of twelve children. His father, Oran Kingsley, Jr., was a native of Connecticut, and his mother, of the north of Ireland. When Calvin was about twelve years old the family moved to Ellington, Chautauqua County. His parents were not actively affiliated with any church, but here the boy came under Methodist influence, was converted, and made up his mind to get an education. He worked on the farm summers, attended school winters, and at the end of three years was employed by the trustees to teach the school. Later he taught at Randolph, Cattaraugus Comity. It was not until he was twenty-four that he found opportunity to go to college. With no means of support other than his hands and brains, he entered Allegheny College in 1836, eking out a bare living, first by acting as janitor, and then by cutting wood, which he found more remunerative. Twice his course was interrupted by periods of teaching. He had a keen, logical mind, and showed especial aptitude for mathematics and such science as was then taught. During his senior year he was made instructor in mathematics and after his graduation in 1841 he continued to teach at Allegheny, becoming in 1843 professor of mathematics and civil engineering. The year he graduated he was admitted to the Erie Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church on trial and married Delia Scudder. Except for the period 1843 to 1846, when the withdrawal of state aid necessitated the dosing of the college, he was connected with the institution until 1856. Ordained deacon in 1843 and elder in 1845, he held preaching appointments at Saegerstown, Pennsylvania (1841), Meadville (1842), and Erie (1844-46). In these earlier years he became known as an able controversialist and defender of the doctrines and polity of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1843, first at Salem, New York, and later at Jamestown, he met in debate Luther Lee [q.v.], one of the organizers of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, the question being whether the Methodist Episcopal Church justified slavery, and in government was arbitrary and unscriptural. In Erie he took a tilt at the Universalists; in Meadville, at the Unitarians; and in 1847, having read Anastasis by George Bush [q.v.], he published The Resurrection of the Dead: A Vindication of the Literal Resurrection of the Human Body: in Opposition to the Work of Prof. Bush, which went through several editions.

He was a delegate from the Erie Conference to the General Conference of 1852, and had by this time become well enough known and highly enough esteemed to receive a respectable number of votes for bishop. At the succeeding General Conference (1856), he was elected editor of the Western Christian Advocate, Cincinnati. The question of slavery was causing strife and division in the Church, and Kingsley made the Advocate aggressively anti-slavery. He was chairman of the committee on slavery at the General Conference of 1860, and presented and ably supported the substituted chapter in the Discipline, which admonished the membership of the Church to seek the "extirpation" of slavery "by all lawful and Christian means." Throughout the Civil War the Advocate gave strong support to the Union cause. At the General Conference of 1864 he was elected bishop. Although he was a comparatively young man, his service was brief. He made his home in Cleveland, but his duties carried him far. In 1865 and 1866 he presided at Conferences on the Pacific Coast, and the following year attended the mission Conference in Switzerland and Germany. In 1869 he was again on the Pacific Coast, and from there went to India and China and then again to Switzerland and Germany. While on a trip to the Holy Land he died suddenly of heart disease at Beirut, where he was buried. A monument erected by American Methodists marks his grave. His account of some of his travels, Round the World: A Series of Letters, in two volumes, with a biographical sketch, was published in 1870.

[Samuel Gregg, The History of Methodism Within the Bounds of the Erie An1i. Conference of the M. E. Church, Volume II (1873); J. N. Fradenburg, History of Erie Conference (1907), Volume II; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the M. E. Church for the Year 1870; Western Christian Advocate, April 13, 20, 1870; E. A. Smith, Allegheny-A Century of Education, 1815-1915 (1916); John McClintock and James Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theol. and Eccl. Literature, Volume V (1873); J. P. Downs and F. Y. Hedley, History of Chautauqua County, New York, and Its People (3 volumes, 1921); Autobiography of the Reverend Luther Lee (1882); Ladies' Repository, May 1865.]

H. E. S.


KINNE, DAVID W., abolitionist, New York, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


KINNEY, C. C., New York, abolitionist, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


KIRBY, Georgianna, abolitionist, California, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1840-41.


KIRK, Edward Norris (August 14, 1802- March 27, 1874), clergyman, pastor of Presbyterian and Congregational churches and promoter of revivals. Throughout the Civil War he was a strong supporter of the Union, and when in 1865 the American Missionary Association was free to extend its work among the colored people of the South he was elected its president.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 427-428:

KIRK, EDWARD NORRIS (August 14, 1802- March 27, 1874), clergyman, pastor of Presbyterian and Congregational churches and promoter of revivals, was born in New York. His father, George, a Scotchman, came to that city when eighteen years old, and married for his second wife Mary Norris, of Welsh and Irish ancestry, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Wade) Norris of Princeton, New Jersey. Edward was the third of her four children, and her only son. The head of the family was a store-keeper, without much ambition, but displaying all the stubbornness and piety commonly attributed to his race. After he was ten years old, Edward made his home with an uncle and aunt at Princeton, Robert and Sarah (Norris) Voorhees, the former a merchant of some means. At fifteen he was enrolled in the sophomore class of the College of New Jersey, and after his graduation in 1820 entered a New York law office. He had not been particularly studious at college, and lived a care-free life until his conversion in 1822. Thereafter the spiritual welfare of his fellow men absorbed him utterly. He immediately entered the Princeton Theological Seminary, where he spent four years, and in June 1826 was licensed to preach.

After two years' service in the Middle and Southern states as agent of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, he accepted an invitation to supply the Second Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York, during the ill health of its pastor, Dr. John Chester. Intensely evangelistic, plain-spoken, sometimes denunciatory, always uncompromising, his preaching was not acceptable to a fashionable congregation which included Martin Van Buren, Benjamin F. Butler, and William L. Marcy, and he was soon summarily dismissed. Some of his sympathizers then organized the Fourth Presbyterian Church of which he was installed pastor on April 21, 1829, having been ordained in the Second Presbyterian Church, New York, October 24, 1828. In the eight years that followed the new church grew rapidly and its pastor became widely known as a promoter of revivals and a lecturer in behalf of missions, temperance, and the anti-slavery movement. He also prepared young men for the ministry, uniting his class with that of Dr. Nathaniel S. S. Beman [q.v.] of Troy in 1833 and establishing the Troy and Albany Theological School, first located at Port Schuyler, later at Troy, and discontinued in 1837, when Kirk resigned his pastorate. From April of this year until September 1839 he was in Europe, studying conditions there and frequently preaching and lecturing. Upon his return he became secretary of the Foreign Evangelical Society (American and Foreign Christian Union) and helped to conduct revivals in the principal cities of the East, attracting crowds wherever he spoke. Calls to pastorates came to him from many places, and in 1842 he consented to settle in Boston where a Congregational church was organized for him.

For more than a quarter of a century he was one of the outstanding preachers of the city, and under his leadership the Mount Vernon Church became an aggressive agency of evangelism and reform. In 1846 he was prominent in the gathering at London which gave birth to the Evangelical Alliance. He was sent to Paris by the American and Foreign Christian Union in 1857 to establish an American chapel there, a mission which he successfully performed. Throughout the Civil War he was a fiery supporter of the Union, and when in 1865 the American Missionary Association was free to extend its work among the colored people of the South he was elected president. Besides scores of sermons and addresses which appeared in periodicals or in pamphlet form, he published: Sermons Delivered in England and America (1840); Theopneusty, or the Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scripture (1842) and The Canon of the Holy Scriptures (1862), both translations from the French of Louis Gaussen, the latter an abridgment; Louis Fourteenth and the Writers of His Age (1855), a translation from the French of Jean Frederic Astie; Lectures on the Parables of Our Saviour (1856); Discourses Doctrinal and Practical (1857). He also edited and compiled Songs for Social and Public Worship (1868). His Lectures on Revivals, edited by D. 0. Mears, appeared in 1875. He never married, and died at his home in Boston.

[D. O. Mears, Life of Edward Norris Kirk, D.D. (1877); Justin Winsor, The Memorial History of Boston (1881), Volume III; F. G. Beardsley, A History of American Revivals (1904); John Ross Dix, Pulpit Portraits of Distinguished American Divines (1854); Princeton Theolog. Seminary. General Catalog (1894); Boston Transcript and Boston Daily Advertiser, March 28, 1874.)

H. E. S.


KIRKLAND, William, abolitionist, Michigan, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40.


KIRKPATRICK, Peter, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-39.


KIRKWOOD, Samuel Jordan, 1813-1894, statesman, political leader.  Governor of Iowa, 1860-1864, 1876-1877.  U.S. Senator, 1865-1867, 1877-1881.  Secretary of the Interior, 1881-1882.  Anti-slavery Senator.  Early leader in the Republican Party.  Strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union.  During his second term as governor the pro-slavery element, or "Copperheads,"  in Iowa gained strength and at several times threatened insurrection. The Governor's prompt dispatch of home-guard troops successfully quelled internal dissension. The seriousness of the danger in Iowa at that time has often been overlooked. Kirkwood's vigor and promptness in action won him a place of prominence among the Northern war governors.

(Clark, 1917; Lathrop, 1893; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 436-437)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, p. 436-437:

KIRKWOOD, SAMUEL JORDAN (December 20, 1813-September 1, 1894), secretary of the interior, senator, and "war governor" of Iowa, was born in Harford County, Maryland, the son of well-to-do Scotch-Irish parents, Jabez Kirkwood and his second wife, Mary (Alexander) Wallace. His grandfather, Robert Kirkwood, coming from Londonderry, Ireland, had settled at Newcastle, Delaware, in 1731. Jabez Kirkwood, a farmer and blacksmith, was so desirous that his sons should have a thorough education that he sent Samuel to school when he was so small his older brothers had to carry him. In 1823 he went to Washington and for four years studied Latin and Greek in the private school of a family connection, John McLoed. After teaching a year and working for a time as a drug clerk, he returned to his family, who had met with financial reverse s and were starting we st in an effort to regain their fortunes. The family settled in Richland County, Ohio, and young Kirkwood spent his first few years there in clearing land for the new farm and occasionally teaching school or acting as deputy county assessor. In 1841 he moved to the county seat and after two years' study was admitted to the bar. In 1843 he married Jane Clark, whose people soon moved to Iowa City, Iowa. Twelve years later, after much urging from his wife's relatives, Kirkwood also moved to Iowa and purchased an interest in the Clark grist and flour mill.

In Ohio he had served as prosecuting attorney of Richland County, 1845-49, and had been a member of the state constitutional convention of 1850-51. Becoming established in his new home just as the Iowa Republican party was being organized, he was immediately accepted as a leader. After a term in the state Senate, he was nominated for governor in 1859. In one of the hottest campaigns ever conducted in Iowa, the unpolished miller-farmer triumphed over his Democratic rival, Augustus Cesar Dodge [q.v.], just returned from the Court of Spain. Two years later he was reelected. Kirkwood's office brought to him the responsibility of directing a state lacking in financial strength and divided by the political issue of the day. Before the end of his first term the nation was plunged in civil war. Rising to the situation, Kirkwood called a special session of the legislature, pledged his personal fortune, and borrowed from his friends to equip volunteers in the Union cause with the necessary arms and supplies. During his second term the pro-slavery element, or "Copperheads," gained great strength and at several times threatened insurrection, but the Governor's prompt dispatch of home-guard troops so successfully quelled internal dissension that the seriousness of the situation in Iowa at that time has often been overlooked. Kirkwood's vigor and promptness in action won him a place of prominence among the Northern war governors. In March 1863 he was appointed minister to Denmark, but fearing that it was a move to keep him from the United States Senate, he declined the appointment. With his term as governor completed, he returned to private life and the practice of law; but he was soon called to fill the unexpired term (1866-67) of James Harlan [q.v.], who left the Senate to become secretary of the interior.

Against his wishes, Kirkwood was again nominated in 1875 for governor, and in an uneventful campaign was returned to office for a third term by an overwhelming majority. In the following year, however, he was elected to the Senate, and consequently relinquished the governor's office in 1877. In 1881 he was appointed secretary of the interior. He held the office commendably but not brilliantly until some months after the death of Garfield, resigning April 17, 1882. His last political adventure was unsuccessful; in 1886 he was Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives and was defeated by Walter I. Hayes, who won his victory through a split in the Republican party that even the old War Governor could not mend. This was the last political activity of the now aging man, who spent the remaining years of his life at his home in Iowa City, where he died.

[Dan E. Clark, Samuel Jordan Kirkwood (1917); H. W. Lathrop, The Life and Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood (1893); B. F. Shambaugh, The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of Iowa, volumes II, IV (1903); Civil War letters of Kirkwood in Iowa History Record, July, October 1886, January 1887, October 1890, January 1891; Biographical sketch, Ibid., October 1894; Annals of Iowa, October 1873, October 1894, January 1898, October 1900; Biographical Directory American Congress (1928).]

F. E. H-k.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 557:

KIRKWOOD, Samuel Jordan, senator, born in Harford county, Maryland, 20 December, 1813; died in Iowa city, Iowa, 1 September, 1894. His only schooling was received in Washington, D. C., and ended when he was fourteen. He removed to Ohio in 1835, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1843. From 1845 till 1849 he was prosecuting attorney of Richland county, and in 1850-'1 was a member of the State constitutional convention. He removed to Iowa in 1855, engaged in milling and farming, and in 1 856 served in the state senate. He was elected governor of Iowa in 1859, and re-elected in 1861. He placed in the field nearly or quite fifty regiments of infantry and cavalry, all but the first being enlisted for three years, and throughout the war there was no draft in Iowa, as her quota was always filled by volunteers. He was offered in 1862 the appointment of U. S. minister to Denmark, and, in the hope of his acceptance, Mr. Lincoln held the appointment open until the expiration of Mr. Kirkwood's term as governor, but he then made his refusal final. In 1866 he was elected U. S. senator as a Republican, to fill the unexpired term of James Harlan. In 1875 he was for a third time governor of the state, and the next year was re-elected U. S. senator, serving till 1881, when he resigned to enter the cabinet of President Garfield as secretary of the interior. After 1882 he held no public office. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III.


KITE, Benjamin, abolitionist, officer of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

(Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 131)


KITTRIDGE, Ingalls, Beverly, Massachusetts, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1834-37.


KNAPP, Chauncey L., abolitionist, Montpelier, Vermont, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40, 1840-41.


KNAPP, Isaac, 1804-1843, Boston, Massachusetts, printer, newspaper editor and publisher, abolitionist.  Helped William Lloyd Garrison found abolitionist newspaper, Liberator, in 1831.  Served as editor and publisher of the Liberator until 1841.  Knapp published numerous anti-slavery and abolitionist books, reports and articles.  Manager, 1833-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  He was indicted in Raleigh, North Carolina, for circulating the paper there.  Co-founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society (NEASS) on January 1, 1832, in Boston.  Published and distributed numerous anti-slavery pamphlets. 

(Rodriguez, 2007, p. 463; Sinha, 2016; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892)


KNEELAND, Abner (April 7, 1774-August 27, 1844), Universalist clergyman, antitheist, opposed slavery.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2, pp. 457-458:

KNEELAND, ABNER (April 7, 1774-August 27, 1844), Universalist clergyman, antitheist, was descended through his father from Edward Kneeland who settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, about 1630; and through his mother, Moriah Stone, from Captain John Stone, an early member of the Plymouth colony. His father, Timothy Kneeland, was a soldier in the Revolution. Abner was born in what became Gardner, Massachusetts. After attending the common schools he spent one term in Chesterfield (New Hampshire) Academy. He joined the Baptist Church at Putney, Vermont, doing some preaching. On April 9, 1797, he married Waitstill Ormsbee, and subsequently moved to Alstead, New Hampshire. In 1803 he became a Universalist and the following year was licensed to preach. In 1805 the Congregationalists united with the Universalists in making him the town minister at Langdon, New Hampshire. During this pastorate, his first wife having died in 1806, he married Lucinda Mason. He represented the town in the legislature (1810-11), and published A Brief Sketch of a New System of Orthography (1807), setting forth a phonetic system. He also brought out spelling books which had some vogue. In 1812 he became minister of a Universalist Society at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and in August 1813, again a widower, he married Mrs. Eliza Osborn of Salem. The following year he went into business in that town.

He had commenced to doubt the divine origin of the Scriptures, and about this time undertook a somewhat extensive correspondence on the subject with his friend Hosea Ballou [q.v.]. This correspondence was published in 1816 as A Series of Letters in Defence of Divine Revelation. In 1817, his doubts being somewhat allayed, he resumed preaching at Whitestown, New York, and in the fall of the following year was settled over the Lombard Street Universalist Church in Philadelphia. There he edited successively the Christian Messenger, 1819-21, the Philadelphia Universal Magazine and Christian Messenger, 1821-23, and the Gazetteer (1824), in all his papers championing liberal views. He also published, among other works, a translation of the New Testament (1822). In 1825 his preaching and editorial activity were transferred to New Street Universalist Society, resigning after a controversy with the trustees and becoming pastor of the newly organized Second Universalist Society. He began editing the Olive Branch in May 1827 (in 1828 the Olive Branch and Christian Inquirer), a paper devoted to "free inquiry, pure morality and rational Christianity." During this period he became intimate with Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright [qq.v.], and was a frequent contributor to the Free Enquirer. His radicalism gradually estranged him from the Universalists, and at the meeting of the Southern Association in Hartford, May 1829, upon the advice of Hosea Ballou, he asked and was granted permission to suspend himself from fellowship.

Kneeland then went to Boston where he became the leader of a group known as the First Society of Free Enquirers, lectured frequently on Rationalism, and in 1831 began to expound his pantheistic views in the Boston Investigator, probably the first Rationalist journal in the United States. In the issue of December 20, 1833, he used language and illustrative material which led to his indictment for publishing "a certain scandalous, impious, obscene, blasphemous and profane libel of and concerning God." Tried in January 1834, he was convicted, but appealed. In two further trials the juries disagreed, but conviction was again secured at the fourth trial, November term, 1835. The appeal was postponed from term to term until 1838, when James T. Austin [q.v.], attorney-general of Massachusetts, obtained a confirmation of the judgment, and sentence of sixty days was pronounced (20 Pickering, 206-46). When the Governor's Council met a few days later, a petition for pardon bearing about 170 names and a remonstrance signed by some 230 citizens were referred to the committee on pardons. The petition for pardon was signed by such men as William Ellery Channing, George Ripley, George W. Briggs, A. Bronson Alcott, Theodore Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Three eminent pastors of Boston Baptist churches, though men of conservative theological views, also signed. The committee took no action, however, and sentence was enforced. Theodore Parker wrote: "Abner was jugged for sixty days; but he will come out as beer from a bottle, all foaming, and will make others foam" (Sanborn and Harris, post, I, 281).

About 1838 the First Society of Free Enquirers had planned to found a colony in the West, and in the spring of 1839, some months after his release from jail, Kneeland emigrated to the chosen site, which he had named Salubria, on the Des Moines River some two miles from Farmington, Iowa. Here, although the colony project did not materialize, he made his home for the remaining five years of his life. In 1840 he was a Democratic candidate for the territorial council, and in 1842 was chairman of the Democratic convention of Van Buren County, but in both in stances the "infidel ticket" which he supported was defeated by a combination of Whigs and "church Democrats."

Though he was anathema to the straitly orthodox churchmen, Kneeland was held in high esteem by free-thinkers. Sincere to the point of fanaticism-he "saw in every effort made by these who differed with him a determination to bind his conscience" (Frederick Hancock, quoted by Whitcomb, post, p. 355)-he was a man of indisputable courage and purity of character. Personally he was refined and sensitive, with a calm, courteous manner. For some months after he moved to the West he taught school at Helena, Arkansas, and was remembered by a former pupil for his noteworthy kindness and gentleness. He died at Salubria in his seventy-first year. By his four marriages-the last in 1834 to Mrs. Dolly L. Rice-he was the father of twelve children.

[S. F. Kneeland, Seven Centuries of the Knee land Family (1897); L. C. Browne, Review of the Life and Writings of M. Hale Smith (1847); Voltaire Paine Twombly, sketch of Kneeland in the State Line Democrat (Keosauqua, Ia.), August 27, 1903; Mary R. "Whitcomb, "Abner Kneeland: His Relations to Early Iowa History," Annals af Iowa, April 1904; Thos. Whittemore, Life of Reverend Hosea Ballou (4 volumes 1854-55); F. B. Sanborn and W. T. Harris, A. Bronson Alcott, His Life and Philosophy (1893); A. C. Thomas, A Century of Universalism in Philadelphia and New York (1872); Memoirs of the Life of Nathaniel Stacy (1850); W. D. Herrick, History of the Town of Gardner, Worcester County, Massachusetts (1878); History of Van B1wen County, Ia. (1878); J.M. Wheeler, A Biographical Directory of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (London, 1889); S. P. Putnam. 400 Years of Freethought (1894); Jos. McCabe, A Biographical Directory of Modern Rationalists (London, 1920); obituary in Boston Investigator, September 25, 1844; records of trials in the office of the clerk of the superior court of Massachusetts papers relating to the petitions for pardon and the remonstrance against it in the Massachusetts Archives.]

W.H.A.


KNEVELS, John, New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


KNIPE, Joseph Farmer, abolitionist, Union Civil War General.  Served in General Slocums 12th Corps, and the Georgia and Carolina Campaigns. 1864-1865.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 563)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 563:

KNIPE, Joseph Farmer, soldier, born in Mount Joy, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, 30 November, 1823. He was educated in a private school, served in the ranks through the war with Mexico, and then engaged in mercantile business in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, until 1861, when he organized the 46th Pennsylvania regiment, and was commissioned its colonel. He was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers 29 November, 1862, and served in the Army of the Potomac, and in that of the Cumberland, commanding a brigade and then a division, till the fall of Atlanta, when he became chief of cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee. General Knipe received two wounds at Winchester, Virginia, two at Cedar Mountain, Georgia, and one at Resaca, Georgia. He was mustered out of service in September, 1865, and is now (1887) superintendent of one of the departments in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.



KNOWLTON, Ebenezer, 1815-174, Pittsville, New Hampshire, abolitionist, clergyman.  Member of the Maine House of Representatives and the U.S. House of Representatives, 1855-1857.  Early member of the Republican Party.  Lifelong opponent of slavery and temperance activist.  Founder of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.  Coordinator of Free Will Baptist newspaper, Morning Star.


KNOX, Samuel, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)


KORNER, Gustav Philipp (November 20, 1809-April 9, 1896), jurist, statesman, historian. The anti-slavery movement was important to Korner. “Though originally a Democrat, like most of the older generation of Germans of this period, he did not hesitate to join the new Republican party, and by his example as well as by his eloquent speeches in the campaign of 1856 he did much to win over his countrymen to the Republican cause”.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 2. 496-497:

KORNER, GUSTAV PHILIPP (November 20, 1809-April 9, 1896), jurist, statesman, historian, son of Bernhard and Marie Magdelena (Kampfe) Korner, was born in the free city of Frankfurt-am-Main where his father, an ardent German patriot, was a bookseller and dealer in works of art. Gustav received his early instruction in the model school (Musterschule) of Frankfurt and continued his preparation in the Gymnasium. In 1828 he entered the University of Jena to study jurisprudence. Here he joined forthwith the flourishing Burschenschaft, the patriotic student society which aimed at the unity and freedom of Germany, and which had its members in most German universities. Continuing his studies at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate, he returned to Frankfurt where for a time he practised law. He took part in the revolutionary movements which had broken out in many parts of Germany. In the Frankfurt revolt of 1833 he was wounded, fled to France, and at Havre  joined a number of friends who were about to sail for America. They arrived in New York on June 17, 1833, and proceeded at once to St. Louis, then the goal of many German immigrants who were attracted thither by Gottfried Duden's glowing description of Missouri. Korner and his party were, however, keenly disappointed when they discovered that the institution of slavery prevailed in this state. They therefore decided to settle in St. Clair County, Illinois, where a number of their relatives and friends, mostly men and women of education and culture, had already purchased land. This colony, frequently known as the "Latin settlement," gradually became a cultural center which exerted a decided influence upon the intellectual and political life of the state, and eventually, under the leadership of Korner, upon national politics. On June 17, 1836, Korner was married to Sophie Engelmann, with whose family he had come to the United States.

To become acquainted with American law and to improve his English, Korner took a law course at Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky. Returning to Belleville, Illinois, his future permanent residence, he practised his profession but soon found himself drawn into local and national politics, taking an active part in the campaigns of 1840 and 1844. In 1845 he was appointed justice of the Illinois supreme court, a post which he held until 1850. After the new constitution of Illinois, adopted in 1848, had made all state offices elective and reduced the salary of supreme court judges to the ridiculously small sum of $1,200, Korner refused the nomination for the position. In 1852 he was, however, nominated and elected lieutenant governor, which office he occupied until 1856.

In the meantime, the growing antislavery movement was engaging Korner's attention. Though originally a Democrat, like most of the older generation of Germans of this period, he did not hesitate to join the new Republican party, and by his example as well as by his eloquent speeches in the campaign of 1856 he did much to win over his countrymen to the Republican cause. A close friend of Abraham Lincoln, he took over some of the latter's law cases at Springfield and was consulted occasionally on important matters. Finally, in recognition of the many services which Korner had rendered the Union cause at the beginning of the Civil War, Lincoln, in 1862, appointed him minister to Spain, to succeed Carl Schurz. His chief task in this position was to counteract English and French attempts to bring about a joint recognition of the Confederacy, and to cultivate the traditional friendly relations with Spain. Difficult as his tasks were, Korner, with delicate diplomatic tact and fine understanding of the Spanish national character and culture, succeeded remarkably well. His book on Spain (Aus Spanien, 1867) shows how thoroughly he had studied and appreciated Spanish art, the natural beauties of the country, and the ethnic characteristics of its diverse population. After his return from Spain (1864) he took little or no interest in active politics for a number of years. When the corruption of the Grant administration was growing more and more intolerable, however, he joined the Liberal Republican movement in 1872 and supported, though reluctantly, Horace Greeley. Again in 1876 he asserted his political independence as well as his steadfast devotion to the principles of the liberal movement by advocating the candidacy of Samuel Tilden against Hayes. Disappointed by the course of events following the election of 1876, he retired from his former active participation in politics and devoted the remaining years of his life almost exclusively to literary work. It was then that he wrote his valuable historical study entitled Das Deutsche Element in den Vereinigten Staaten van Nordamerika (1880). A keen observer of men, a profound and sympathetic student of American institutions, politics, and life in general, and a man of calm judgment, he was exceptionally qualified to write the history of one of the great constituent parts of the composite American population during a period the greater part of which he had followed as an eye witness. His object was "to show how strongly and to what extent the arrival of the Germans in large numbers since 1818 had influenced this country politically and socially." He was one of the first thus to recognize the importance of the ethnic problem in American historiography.

While it may be regretted that Korner did not include the German immigration of 1848 and the subsequent years in his history, the omission is partly compensated for by his autobiography which he finished shortly before his death. Although these reminiscences were written at the suggestion of his children and, therefore, record many matters pertaining to his immediate family, they unfold at the same time a fascinating picture of the cultural and political life of the nation and the important part which the German element played in it during the nineteenth century.

[The chief source of information is Kurner's autobiography published under the title, Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, 1809-1896: Life Sketches Written at the Suggestion of His Children (1909), ed. by Thomas J. McCormack. H. A. Rattermann's German biography, Gustav Korner, Deutsch-Amerikanischer Jurist, Staatmann, Diplomat und Geschichtschreiber (1902), is based essentially upon Kurner's "Memoirs," the manuscript of which was placed at the author's disposal by the family. Other sources include: J. M. Palmer, Bench and Bar of Illinois (1899), Volume I; Newton Bateman and others, History Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of St. Clair County (1907), Volume I; St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 10, 1896.

J., J. G.

[1] William Sullivan, Esq.

[2] Mr. Sullivan, in his " Familiar Letters," before quoted, says, " Rufus King at this time was about thirty-three years of age. He was an uncommonly handsome man, in face and form; he had a powerful mind, well cultivated, and was a dignified and graceful speaker: He had the appearance of one who was a gentleman by nature, and who had well improved all her gifts. It is a rare occurrence to see a finer assemblage of personal and intellectual qualities, cultivated to best effect, than were seen in this gentleman."

Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.