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William P. King is the man accredited with the establishment of what is now the city of Kaufman, Texas. He was an industrious person who worked as a merchant, frontier ranger, surveyor, commodities & slave trader, Physician, banker, land broker and entrepreneur during his life time. Born 3 May 1798 in Prince William VA, son of Seth & Mary Ann King. (See PEDIGREE below) By the age of 4 he was living in Nelson Co KY with his parents. His mother died when he was eleven and he left home to make his way in the world. By age 20 William had lived in Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana and Louisiana. He married in Rutherford Co TN to Sarah Mary Edwards on 20 Jan 1824. She was a native of Murfreesboro, TN - born 25 Nov 1806, daughter of Owen Hunt Edwards & Judith Morton. She died 19 Apr 1837 from complications of Childbirth. Click here to read a letter written by William Pope King February 1, 1840. William and Sarah Edwards King had four sons and a daughter:
William King was enumerated with his family on the 1830 Rutherford Co TN Census. He moved from there to northern Mississippi in the late 1830's. In August 1837 with a business partner named Alexander C. McEwen, he formed a bank in Holly Springs, Mississippi, just four months after his wife's death. But the venture was not a lucrative one and by March of 1838 the bank had failed, the result being the circulation of thousands of dollars of worthless bank notes.
It was another year before the bank was legally dissolved within the courts:
The downfall of King's bank did not keep him from other ventures. He was involved, again with A.C McEwen & R.H. Pattillo, in the establishment of the Female Academy of Holly Springs:
In the fall of 1838 King began a new business. He organized the Southern Land Company in Mississippi and became the company's President. He moved its headquarters to San Augustine, Texas, in the summer of 1839. King had purchased Texas land script - known as Toby Script - that entitled him to locate and own land. This script had been sold by Sam Houston to raise money for the Republic of Texas. In August l839 King secretly hired the Nacogdoches County Surveyor Warren Angus Ferris to survey over 400,000 acres of land in the "Three Forks of the Trinity" region of the republic. King's plan was to have Ferris lay out a city site to be called Warwick on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River, with ambitions of harnessing trade from the Gulf Coast on the river. Ferris endeavored to began the work the very next month, however his first attempts to get underway were unsuccessful, turned back each time by Indian attacks or acts of nature. Read Two William P. King Letters from the Barker Texas History Collection by clicking here. On 5 Mar 1840 in Vicksburg, Warren Co MS, William King married for a second time. His new wife was Frances A. Moore Clark, the widow of a physician. She was born 26 Aug 1809 in KY, daughter of John Lewis Moore and Frances B. Martin, and she died in 1854 at Kaufman, TX. Impatient with Ferris' advancement in the surveying project King made plans to return to Nacogdoches to oversee the venture himself. On 3 June 1840, just three months after his marriage, King was back in Texas to began the journey to the region with 29 men. In the summer of 1840 Ferris surveyed over a half million acres with assistance from early Kaufman County pioneers Robert A. Terrell and John H. Reagan. The result was The King Block, which established the lines for future surveys in what is now Hunt, Dallas, Rockwall and Kaufman counties. It was during the summer of 1840 that King built a stockade fort on the site that is now the city of Kaufman, Texas. It consisted of about ¾ acres with fencing from cedar posts, and four log cabins. The place became known as King's Fort and later the community that sprung up around it was called Kingsborough, in King's honor. But the situation with the surveys done by Ferris was not ideal, as many of the headright certificates held by the Southern Land Company proved to be invalid, causing King further legal problems. He did manage to obtain clear title to the survey that included his fort and from 1840 to 1842 King's Fort was the only white settlement between Fort Houston and Fort Inglish. King still had legal problems in Mississippi and he traveled between there and Texas several times in 1840 and 1841. While traveling, and when in Mississippi, he always encouraged people to settle in Texas. In the summer of 1841 William King made a trip to Holly Springs, Mississippi, to see his wife, who was expecting a child, however he didn't make it there. He became ill with yellow fever and died 16 Sep 1841 in Vicksburg, MS. Two months after his death Frances gave birth to their daughter in Vicksburg. She brought the child to San Augustine, Texas, but the baby died at 8 months of age. Child of William & Frances Moore King:
See the pages of William P. King's Bible here. After King's death Frances married James Tabor, with whom she had a daughter. Upon Tabor's death she was residing in Kaufman County and was enumerated there on the 1850 Census living in the home of William Love. On 27 October, 1853, in Kaufman County, she married William Johnson. She died in 1854. Known Descendants of William P. King
1850 San Augustine Co TX Census In the Plunkett Hotel In their own residence - listed as Farmers 1860 San Augustine Co TX Census
1870 San Augustine Co TX Census
* living with Iredell D Thomas- County Clerk in HH#2 * living with C J Polk - HH #501 1870 Harris CO TX Census - Houston
1880 Harris Co TX Census - Houston
KNOWN PEDIGREE of WILLIAM P. KING
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Copyright © 2005-2010 by Abby Balderama Coordinator of the Kaufman County, TXGenWeb Project site ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |