Biography of W C King, Mississippi Co, AR ********************************************************************* USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free Information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. Submitted by: Michael Brown Date: Sep 1998 ********************************************************************* Bibliography: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Eastern Arkansas. Chicago: Goodspeed Publishers, 1890. W. C. King, a physician whose skill has won him a large practice, and a man who stands high in the estimation of his fellow citizens, was born January 13, 1838, at Raleigh, Shelby County, Tenn., and was the fifth in a family of nine children. His parents were John R. and Dosha (Hector) King, of North Carolina and Missouri, respectively. The father was engaged in mechanical pursuits, and had made Tennessee his home for fifty years, dying there in 1882, four years after the demise of his wife. In his youth young King received the best education obtainable, and attended school at home until his seventeenth year. He then took ten months' study at Bethel College, McLemoresville, Tenn., and afterward attended school [p.521] at Bartlett for several years. In 1858 he began the study of medicine with Drs. Duncan and Pryor as his preceptors. both well-known physicians of that period, and in the fall of that year entered the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, where he remained until his graduation, in March, 1861. He then returned to Tennessee, and, the war having just about commenced, enlisted in Company D, Fourth Regiment of Tennessee Volunteers, remaining with them one year, and at the re-organization was transferred to Company A. The Doctor took part in the battles of Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge, being captured at the last named place and taken to Rock Island, Ill., where he was held a prisoner until October 30, of the following year, and then escaped. He immediately returned home, and in the summer of 1865 began to practice his profession in Raleigh, Tenn., where he remained until 1867. He then moved to Coahoma County, Miss., and in 1868, was married to Miss Alice Burrow, of Georgia, a daughter of Rev. Reuben Burrow, a noted Cumberland Presbyterian preacher, whose ability as an orator and revivalist was often commented upon by the press. At the beginning of the war Mr. Burrow raised a company of men, and was placed at the head as captain. After a year's service he was promoted to the rank of major of his regiment, and from that to colonel, in which capacity he served in Gen. Forrest's command through all his battles. At the close of the war he again entered the pulpit, and continued preaching until his death, in 1888. This gifted man was early imbued with the spirit of oratory and began preaching when only nineteen years of age. Dr. King continued to make Coahoma his home until 1879, practicing medicine all the while with great success, in the meantime engaging in planting and also merchandising. He lost his wife in that year, who died leaving him four children to cherish in her stead. Their names are Kate, wife of J. M. Robinson, of this county; Mabel, Dosha, who died in infancy, as also did John R. Soon after the death of his wife, the Doctor returned to Tennessee, where he resided in the neighborhood of his old home until 1887. On June 6, of that year, he came to Mississippi County, Ark., and settled at Pecan Point, where he remained for six months, and then moved to Frenchman's Bayou, where he has located permanently, and purchased a residence in the most thickly settled portion of the place. He was an entire stranger on his arrival, but soon built up a fine practice and won many friends by his agreeable manners and genial disposition. The Doctor has been a Mason since 1865, formerly belonging to Woodlawn Lodge at Bartlett, Tenn., and now a member of Frenchman's Bayou Lodge No. 251, in which he is J. D. His wife was a woman of considerable literary attainments, and when only fifteen years of age she wrote the farewell address to Company D, of the Raleigh Volunteers. It might be well to quote a few of the Doctor's opinions upon a subject that has agitated the Southern people to some extent. He takes great interest in the comparative difference between the white and colored labor of the South, and contends that the result of white labor is much more satisfactory and profitable; that the climatic influences are not particularly injurious to people of the North and East, and that they will find the condition of health in this county equal to that of the western district of Tennessee, or any other point in the Mississippi Valley. He has practiced medicine in both Tennessee and Mississippi, as well as in Arkansas, and states facts that have come under his immediate observation. He has noticed that the citizens of this county who take proper care of themselves enjoy as good health as the inhabitants of almost any other locality, but such occupations as hunting, trapping, etc., are trying to the strongest constitutions, and people who indulge in such pursuits are subject to frequent attacks of illness.