(Excerpt from A Memoir of the Construction, Cost, and Capa...)
Excerpt from A Memoir of the Construction, Cost, and Capacity of the Croton Aqueduct: Compiled From Official Document: Together With an Account of the Civic Celebration of the Fourteenth October, 1842; Preceded by a Preliminary Essay on Ancient and Modern Aqueducts Many other miscellaneous works have been consulted - which are occasionally indicated in the marginal notes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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editor educator merchant author
Charles King was born on March 16, 1789 in New York City, New York, United States, the second son of Rufus King, and Mary, daughter of John Alsop of New York. When Rufus King went to England as United States minister in 1796, he took his family with him.
Charles and his brother, John Alsop King, were placed in a school near London, whence they went to Harrow in 1799. Charles remained there from December 1799 until December 1804, and afterwards spend a few months at a school in Paris.
About 1804 King became a clerk in the banking house of Hope & Company in Amsterdam. In 1806 he returned to New York and entered the mercantile house of Archibald Gracie. In 1810 he became a partner in the firm. The War of 1812 found him captain of a regiment of militia in New York City, and though he was actually in service, he consistently opposed the war, especially during his term (1814) in the New York Assembly.
Late in 1814 business took him to England, and the following April, when the shooting of some mutinous American prisoners occurred at Dartmoor, he was asked, at the suggestion of Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin, to serve on a commission to investigate the affair. On April 26, 1815, less than three weeks after the massacre, King and Francis Seymour Larpent, the English commissioner, submitted their report. While this did not exonerate the English, it was considered too magnanimous in the United States, and was later used against King and his father by politicians. In 1823, the Gracie firm failed, and King became proprietor and editor of the New York American. King was a scholarly editor and a finished writer, but he lacked sufficient enterprise to make a successful newspaper, and after a long struggle with the penny press, the American was united in 1845 with the Courier and Enquirer, and King became associate editor with James Watson Webb and Henry J. Raymond.
He resigned in 1848, and retired to "Cherry Lawn, " his estate at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. At the time of his retirement, he was one of the most distinguished citizens of New York. He was a valued director of the Bank of New York, a prominent officer of the Chamber of Commerce, a frequent speaker at public ceremonies, and an important figure in the delightful society which Philip Hone has recorded. On November 5, 1849, he was elected president of Columbia College, succeeding Nathaniel Fish Moore. He was not an "educator, " nor was he master of any branch of learning, yet his administration at Columbia was notable.
At the age of seventy-five, he resigned, and after a year at Oyster Bay, went abroad with his family and settled in Rome, where his son, General Rufus King, was United States minister. In the spring of 1867, he had a severe attack of his chronic malady, the gout, and was taken to Frascati, where he died. He wrote and published: "History of the New York Chamber of Commerce, " in Collections of the New York Historical Society and memoirs of John Quincy Adams, James Gore King, and Samuel Ward. He also contributed to the Outline of a Course of English Reading, Based on That Prepared by the Late Chancellor Kent, with Additions by Charles King . Edited with Further Additions and Notes by Henry A. Oakley (1853). An anonymous volume, Abridged Tactics for the School of the Soldier and of the Company (1826) is ascribed to him at the New York Historical Society.
(Excerpt from A Memoir of the Construction, Cost, and Capa...)
King was a very handsome man, and his dignity and the perfection of his manners and dress earned him the nickname of "Charles the Pink. "
On March 16, 1810, King married Eliza Gracie. His wife died in 1823 and on October 20, 1826, he married Henrietta Liston Low, daughter of Nicholas Low of New York.
