Background
Richard King was born on July 10, 1825 in Orange County, New York, United States. His parents were of Irish stock and evidently poor.
Richard King was born on July 10, 1825 in Orange County, New York, United States. His parents were of Irish stock and evidently poor.
At the age of eight Richard was apprenticed to a jeweler. Being harshly treated, he ran away and slipped aboard a steamship bound for Mobile, Alabama. There he became a cabin boy. One of his employers, Captain Joe Holland, took quite a fancy to the lad and sent him to Connecticut for eight months in school, which made up the whole of his formal education.
King served for a brief period as a volunteer in the Seminole War, and was then engaged on various steamers on the Chattahoochee River. In 1847 he was attracted to Texas by the Mexican War and served as a pilot on a government steamer on the Rio Grande. He made the acquaintance of his commander, Captain Mifflin Kenedy, and the two remained close friends. When the war was over, King bought a small steamer and engaged in trade on the Rio Grande, and, in 1850, joined Kenedy in organizing Kenedy & Company.
Between 1850 and the close of the Civil War, the company built or purchased twenty-two vessels. During the war, King was engaged in exchanging cotton for supplies from Mexico for the use of the Confederate forces. He and his partner are described as "too well known to render it necessary to speak of their ability to comply with this contract".
King had already conceived the plan of creating a great ranch in the region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. In 1852 he purchased a tract of 75, 000 acres known as the Santa Gertrudis ranch situated in Nueces County southwest of Corpus Christi. He established himself on the ranch, where he was soon the virtual ruler of a great sweep of country. Firm, bold, and prompt in his decisions and actions, he did not hesitate to hold the lawless characters of the frontier in check with an iron hand. His enemies said he was sometimes unscrupulous in his methods of acquiring land, but even they gave him credit for openhanded generosity. The ranch was soon famous for its hospitality. Before the Northern markets were opened, King erected rendering establishments on his ranch and shipped tallow and hides to market by water. Later thousands of his cattle were driven over the long trail to Kansas and the Northern ranges.
From 1876 to 1880 he was engaged in building a railroad from Corpus Christi to Laredo. At one time his livestock holdings included 100, 000 cattle, 20, 000 sheep, and 10, 000 horses. The town of Kingsville has been built on land which formerly was a part of the ranch.
On December 10, 1854, King was married to Henrietta M. Chamberlain, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister.