Shawnee County KS Archives Biographies.....King, James L. 1850 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ks/ksfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com November 19, 2006, 11:11 pm Author: James L. King (1905) JAMES L. KING. JAMES L. KING, present State librarian of Kansas, and author of this volume of the "History of Shawnee County," was born at La Harpe, Hancock County, Illinois, August 2, 1850, his boyhood days being passed in his native town and county, with the exception of two years during the Civil War, which were spent in the South with his father, Col. Selah W. King, an officer of the 50th Regiment, Illinois Vol. Inf. He was only 10 years old when the war begun, but followed the soldiers of Company G of the 50th Regiment, which his father organized, from Camp Wood (Quincy, Illinois,) to Chillicothe, Missouri, thence to St. Joseph, and later to Cairo, Illinois, and Paducah and Smithland, Kentucky, immediately preceding the campaigns of General Grant and Commodore Foote against Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. Afterwards he spent a year with the troops at Corinth, Mississippi, after the battles at Shiloh and Corinth. Although too young to enlist, he lived with the soldiers in camp, drilled and marched with them, and undoubtedly saw as much of the war as any man of his years in the whole country. At the close of the war, he resumed his studies in the La Harpe Academy, where most of his school education was obtained. He also performed clerical work in the law office of his father, who was a practitioner at the bar of Hancock County for nearly half a century, and was a man of considerable prominence, being the friend of Abraham Lincoln, Owen Lovejoy, Richard Yates, Richard J. Oglesby, John A. Logan and other political leaders of that period. The family moved from Ohio to Illinois in 1842, and was of English and Scotch ancestry, Mrs. King's maiden name being Eliza Aleshire. In 1867 James L. King became an apprentice in the office of the Carthage (Illinois) Gazette, where he acquired the printer's trade, for which he had long betrayed a fondness. At the age of 19 years he was the owner and editor of the Home News, a weekly paper published in La Harpe, with which he combined the book and stationery business. In 1870 he commenced the publication of the Headlight, the first paper to be established in the new town of Creston, Iowa. He also worked in an editorial capacity on the Dubuque Times and the Davenport Gazette. His citizenship in Kansas dates from the year 1871, when he located in Topeka. His first employment was in the business department of the Kansas Magazine. He was deputy county treasurer in 1872, and in 1873 became city editor of the Commonwealth* His first newspaper work in Topeka was on the Tanner and Cobbler, a campaign paper which he started in 1872 in conjunction with Milton R. Moore. He was one of the editors of the Topeka Daily Times in 1875. In 1876 he was the editor and publisher of the Capital, a weekly literary and social journal, which was launched three years before the present Topeka newspaper of that name. In 1887 he edited the Lantern, a semi-literary weekly, and in 1889 the National Passenger, a Rock Island railroad enterprise. At different times he has worked on all of the principal newspapers of Topeka, and was for many years the Kansas correspondent of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and Kansas City Journal. His brother, Henry King, is the present editor of the Globe-Democrat. James L. King began service as a clerk in the Topeka Post Office in 1876. Here he remained for 17 years, filling through promotion every position in the office. He was assistant postmaster under the administrations of Postmasters Thomas J. Anderson and John Mileham, in 1880 and 1885, and in 1889 received the appointment of postmaster from President Benjamin Harrison. During his official service he found time to continue his newspaper work to some extent, and he has been a frequent contributor to encyclopedias, magazines and local periodicals. In 1901 he made a tour of the neighboring republic of Mexico and wrote a descriptive pamphlet on the subject, under the title of "Mexico in Glimpses." , He is also the author of "Manitou and the Mountains," "Cloudcroft" and a number of unpretentious monographs and short stories on local topics. He was appointed to be State librarian in December, 1894, serving until 1898. From 1898 to 1902 he had charge of the traveling library system of Kansas. He is chairman of the Kansas Traveling Libraries Commission, and was one of the first and most enthusiastic promoters of that movement. He was the first president of the Kansas State Library Association, and is a member of the National Library Association. In 1902 he was reappointed to the office of State librarian, of which he is the present incumbent. Mr. King was married October 10, 1877, to Elizabeth Coolbaugh, daughter of Edwin B. and Celestia J. Coolbaugh, of Towanda, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. King have resided continuously in Topeka since that date. Their only child, Emilie Packer King, was married November 23, 1904, to William Williams Wikidal, of Topeka. A portrait of Mr. King is shown early in this work. C. Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF SHAWNEE COUNTY, KANSAS AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS EDITED AND COMPILED BY JAMES L. KING TOPEKA, KANSAS "History is Philosophy Teaching by Examples" PUBLISHED BY RICHMOND & ARNOLD, GEORGE RICHMOND; C. R. ARNOLD. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 1905. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/shawnee/bios/king159gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ksfiles/ File size: 5.9 Kb