Bucks County PA Archives Biographies.....King, Charles Ray, M.D.
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joe Patterson, Patricia Bastik & Susan Walters Dec 2009

Source: History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania; edited by 
J.H. Battle; A. Warner & Co.; 1887
Bensalem Township


CHARLES RAY KING, M.D. physician and farmer, born in New 
York on the 16th of March 1813, is the son of John Alsop 
King and Mary Ray, both of New York.  His father, after 
receiving an education at Harrow, in England, on his return 
home was admitted to the bar, served in the war of 1812, and 
then took up his residence in the county, where he lived as 
a farmer until his death.  He was frequently in the 
legislature of the state, in congress in 1850-51, governor 
of the state of New York, and a leading republican 
politician, earnest in advocating the abolition of slavery.  
John A. was the son of Rufus King and Mary Alsop. Rufus King 
was born in Maine, a member of the continental congress, and 
of the convention for forming the constitution of the United 
States from Massachusetts, and having moved to New York was 
sent to the United States senate from that state, where he 
served until appointed by General Washington minister 
plenipotentiary to England, where he remained until 1803.  
He was chosen some years after his return to the senate of 
the United States, his career in that body ending in 1825.  
During his service there he was earnest, as he had been from 
his earliest entrance into public life, in his desire and 
efforts to put an end to slavery, and bore the leading 
though ineffectual part in endeavoring to prevent the 
admission of Missouri as a slave state.  Dr. King was 
educated at Columbia college, N. Y., and was graduated 
in1834 in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania.  
After two years spent in pursuing his studies in Paris he 
engaged in the practice of his profession, first in New York 
and afterwards in Philadelphia.  Having purchased a farm on 
the banks of the Delaware he removed to it in 1847, and 
having retired from the practice of medicine engaged 
actively in farming and interested himself in the affairs of 
the neighborhood, the advancement and welfare of the 
Protestant Episcopal church, in which he had been brought 
up, and in the promotion of the cause of public education, 
having served as president of the school board in Bensalem 
for 15 years, in all of which he still continues to exert an 
unremitting and beneficial influence.  He has been twice 
married.  His first wife, Hannah Wharton Fisher, of 
Philadelphia, died in 1870, leaving him two children, the 
eldest a daughter, Mary, married to Charles F. Lennig, of 
Philadelphia, who have three sons, and the other a son, John 
Alsop King, who married Lillie H. Hamilton, of Philadelphia, 
and died in 1885, leaving a widow and one daughter.  Dr. 
King's present wife is Nancy Wharton Fisher, with whom he 
enjoys the pleasures of a quiet home at Andalusia, on the 
banks of the Delaware.  He has never engaged in public life, 
though like his ancestors he was ever earnestly opposed to 
the extension of slavery and an advocate of the principles 
which characterized the old federal and whig party.