Cumberland County, Maine - James Williams King
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Biography
James Williams King
Biographical Review
Cumberland County, Maine
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1896
Page 473-475


James Williams King, manager of the King Manufacturing Company of Portland, Me.,
was born at Plymouth, Mass., March 21, 1842, son of James and Betsey W:
(Hathaway) King, the former a native of Brewster, Cape Cod, Mass., the latter of
Plymouth. He traces his descent from John King, who removed from Eastham, Mass.,
to Harwich about the year 1700, the records showing that he was in Eastham as
early as 1688. His will, which was dated November 18, 1752, shows that he was a
man of considerable means. His eldest son, Roger, was born in Eastham, and
settled in the part of Harwich now called Brewster, where he died May 23,1768,
in his seventy-fourth year. His estate was valued at seven hundred and thirty-
three pounds, eighteen shillings, five pence, a large amount for those days.
Nathaniel King, the eldest son of Roger, was born March 21, 1726 or 1727, and
married Reliance Clark. Their eldest son, who was also named Nathaniel, was born
at Harwich, December 25, 1751, and died in Brewster, February 22, 1832. He married
Hannah Taylor, of Chatham, in 1771.

James King, first, the grandfather of James Williams, was the fifth child of
Nathaniel and Hannah (Taylor) King, and was baptized in September, 1784. He was
a seafaring man, and at the time of the struggle of the Argentine Republic with
Spain for independence was master of one of the Argentine war-ships, and was
quite seriously wounded in the head. At the close of the war he had large grants
of land, and prize money from the government to the amount of thirty thousand
dollars, the latter not to be taken out of the country. In attempting to get
away with it he was arrested, carried inland, and confined in a stockade. There
were six hundred or seven hundred others with him. He was chosen leader of the
company, and once escaped, but was recaptured. Fully seven years elapsed before
his case came to trial. He was then released, given his sword,uniform,land
grants, and his passage home. His last years were spent in New Bedford as master
rigger of vessels. He died in 1857. He was three times married, his first wife,
who was the grandmother of James Williams King, being Mrs. Temperance Knowles
Paddock. She became Mrs. King in 1816; and during the time of her husband's
captivity in South America she supported the family, which consisted of four
children-James, the father of our subject; Temperance; David; and Mary-by
teaching common-school branches and navigation at her home on Cape Cod.

James King, second, also followed the sea, being Captain of a whaler at twenty-
one or twenty-two years of age. He died of heart disease in July, 1868, while
fast to a whale, being then but fifty-one years of age. His wife was a daughter
of Joshua Hathaway,who was a resident of Plymouth. Captain King's family resided
in Plymouth till the subject of this sketch was nine years old, when they
removed to Middleboro, making their home on a small farm. Captain and Mrs. King
reared three children - Matilda E., who died in January, 1862; James Williams;
and Bessie B., who is now the wife of Lyman E. Shaw, of Waterville, Me. Mrs.
Betsey W. King is still living, making her home with Mrs. Shaw. She is a member
of the Baptist church of Plymouth, Mass.

James Williams King attended the schools of Middleboro, Mass., until fifteen
years of age. He spent a year in Mattapoisett, where his family had removed, and
August 30, 1858, started on a whaling voyage, going around Cape Horn in the
barque "J. D. Thompson " of New Bedford. At Honolulu he saw the first delegation
of seventy-two of the ablest men of Japan on their way to the United States and
England, to become familiar with the advanced ideas of Western civilization. He
spent one season in the Okhotsk Sea and one in the Arctic Ocean, and did not
reach home until 1561, the first year of the war of the Rebellion, the voyage
consuming three years. The first intimation he received of trouble in the United
States was from a vessel near Cape Horn, about January, 1861 ; and when near the
Azores Islands another vessel threw off some New Orleans papers tied to a stick,
which contained the surprising news of the beginning of hostilities. The day the
first battle of Bull Run was fought Mr.King was whaling off the Azores. Reaching
home August 20, 1861, he rested for a while, and in January of the following
year went to Waterville, Me., to work for his uncle, C.F. Hathaway, a shirt
manufacturer. In August, 1862, he returned to Massachusetts, enlisting on the
second day of the month in Company D, Eighteenth Massachusetts Regiment,
Volunteer Infantry, which had been in the field with the Army of the Potomac
nearly a year. He enlisted as a private, and joined his regiment at or near
Hall's Hill, Va., one week after the second battle of Bull Run. The battle of
Antietam was the first action in which he participated, his regiment belonging
to the Fifth Army Corps; and after that he was in all the engagements of the
Army of the Potomac, the last being at Appomattox Court-house, Va., April g,
1865. Mr. King was under the command of General Chamberlain, to whom Lee
formally surrendered April 13. A new recruit in an old regiment stood little
chance of promotion; but Mr. King was raised step by step from the rank of
private to that of Second Lieutenant, being the only enlisted man in his company
of the Eighteenth Massachusetts who obtained a commission. At the end of his
first term of service he re-enlisted in the old regiment, and was afterward
transferred to the Thirty-second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, receiving his
discharge July 17, 1865, at the close of the war. He was not wounded during his
term of service, but at the first Fredericksburg battle, December, 1862, had his
clothing riddled by shot. Of his company twenty-six were there killed or wounded
out of fifty-one engaged. At the close of the war Mr. King returned to
Waterville to work for C. F. Hathaway, who eventually took him into partnership.
In 1879 he established a business of his own in Waterville, manufacturing shirts
and underwear, but in 1882 returned to the employ of C. F. Hathaway. In 1888 he
removed to Portland, and engaged in the manufacture of ladies and children's
muslin underwear, to which he later added wrappers. Starting with but one girl
as an assistant, he now employs from eighty to ninety hands, and is manager of a
prosperous corporate company.

March 16, 1865, while on a twenty days furlough from the army, Mr. King was
united in marriage with Miss Amelia M. Thurber, of North Providence, R.I. Four
children were born of this union - Cora A., James, Ralph T., and Emma M. Cora A.
became the wife of William C. Crawford. She died in 1893 at Gloucester, Mass.,
leaving one daughter, Cora. James, who is a graduate of Colby University, was
two years Deputy Consul at Halifax, and is now in the insurance business at
Chicago. Ralph Thurber resides in Providence. Emma M. is with her parents. In
politics Mr. King is a Republican. He and his wife and daughter are members of
the Baptist Church of Waterville, Me.