Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/279

 KING

KING

1836, was employed in a dry-goods store until 1840, wlien lie became assistant teacher in the Bunker Hill grammar school, and in 1842, prin- cipal of the West grammar school at Medford, Mass., and during all tliis time applied himself

diligently to study. He was a pupil in theolog}' under Hosea Ballou in Medford, 1842-4.5, and was clerk in the navy yai'd at Charlestown, Mass., for a time. He de- livered his first ser- mon in Woburn, Mass., in 1845, preach- ed for a sliort time for a Universalist so- ciety in Boston, and in 1846 settled over his first parish at Charles- town, to which his father had ministered. In 1848 he became pastor of the HoUis Street Unitarian church, Boston, Mass., and remained there until tlie spring of 1860. During this period he entered the lecture field, gaining great popularity. His lecture sub- jects include : " Goethe", " Substance and Show", " Sight and Insight ", " The Laws of Disorder " and " Socrates." In 1860 he became pastor of the First Unitarian society in San Francisco, Cal., and his fame as a lecturer having preceded him, he was soon in the lecture-field in California and Oregon. He became familiar with the natural beauties of the Yosemite valley, to which he called the attention of the public through lectures and newspaper articles. Shortly after the secession of the southern states he learned of the existence of a large party in California in favor of forming an independent republic. His efforts against this project drew upon him the attention of the whole nation, and his patriotic denunciation of it won the day at the polls, and California was pi"e- served to the Union. Througli his exertions the United States sanitary commission obtained generous sums of monej' in California that en- abled it to carry on its work at a critical period of the war. At the same time he was occupied with the building of a new church, the corner- stone of which was laid in September, 1862. It was dedicated, Jan. 10, 1864, and in February, 1864, he was stricken with diphtheria from which he never rallied. He was buried with notable civic and military honors. He received the hon- orary degree of A.^M. from Harvard in 1850. In 1889 a monument was erected to his memory at Golden Gate Park, Cal., at a cost of $50,000. His name was one of the twenty-six in '* Class G, Preachers and Theologians," submitted for a place

in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, New York university, in October, 1900, and received seven votes. He is the author of : The Uliite Hills, their Legends, Landscapes and Poetry (18.59), and contributions to the Boston Transcript and the Universalist Quarterly. After his death some of his writings were collected and published under the titles: Patriotism and Other Papers (1865); Christianity and Humanity, with a memoir by Edwin P. Whipple (1877); Substance and Show (1877). He died in San Francisco, March 4, 1864. KING, William, governor of Maine, was born at Scarborough, Maine, Feb. 9, 1768 ; son of Richard and Mary (Blake) King. He was a half-brother of Rufus King, and a grandson of Samuel Blake, of York, Maine. His father was a commissary in the British army at An- napolis, Nova Scotia, in 1744, and subse- quently established himself in business in Watertown, Mass., and in 1746 in Scar- borough, Maine. William received a very meagre school- ing, and when a mere boy worked in a lumber mill in Saco, and afterward at Topsliam, Maine. He became the own- er of the mill and store with his brother-in- law, Dr. Benjamin Porter. He removed to Bath in 1800, and there amassed a fortune as a lumber manufacturer and shipbuilder. He was married, in 1802, to Ann Frazier, of Scarborough. Maine. He was a Democratic repi'esentative from the town of Topsham to the general court of Massa- chusetts, 1795-96, and a state senator from the town of Bath, 1800-03, and from the Lincoln dis- trict, 1807-08. He was elected the first governor of the state of Maine in 1820, and resigned the office in 1821 to accept the appointment of U.S. commissioner for the adjustment of Spanish claims in Florida. He was appointed commis- sioner of public buildings for Maine in 1828, and was authorized to procure plans for the construc- tion of a state capitol at Augusta. The models furnished by Charles Bulfinch, of Boston, which were copies of the Massachusetts capitol on a re- duced scale, were accepted, and the structure was finished under his supervision. He was collector of the U.S. customs at Bath, Maine, 1831-34. He organized and was president of the first bank opened in Bath, owned mucli real estate, includ- ing the whole town of Kingfield. Franklin county, which was named in his honor, and was