Radio Script #1260

Little Talks on Common Things
January 25, 1981

Last week I told you about some of the highpoints in the business and political career of Maine’s firs governor, William King.
What has not been so well known about the man whose statue represents our state in the national capitol is the story of the decline in his business activities and the almost complete loss of his considerable fortune.

I have already told you how the town of Kingfield came to be named for this man thirteen years before he became our first governor. He had purchased three townships in what was known as the Bingham Miller Area purchase in the northern part of Somerset and Franklin counties. One of the three townships he bought became the town of Kingfield.

That land adventure was not profitable for William King. Many of the men whom his agent persuaded to settle on the tract became discouraged and gave up their holdings, which reverted to King. There was persistent difficulty with squatters and timber thieves. In 1842 the agent wrote to King: “Albert Powers, collector of taxes for Kingfield, called to say that he must have your tax due the town, which is between $70 and $80. He insists that $35 be paid in one week, and the rest in one month, or he will seize the stock on your farm here and sell it at auction.”

That incident reveals that by the year 1842, William King was so hard pressed for money that he could not pay a tax which did not exceed $80. What had happened to a man of great wealth, who owned a fleet of merchant ships, a prosperous store, and vast acreage of land?

By 1842 King’s business had dropped so low that his liquid funds were almost exhausted. His few remaining ships – many had already been sold — brought in little money, and some of the voyages were costing more than they earned. Besides his wharf and store, there was no real business left for him. By 1843 his funds had become so low that he placed a heavy mortgage on his extensive land and buildings at the Point, where were his big mansion and other holdings.

The sad thing that had happened was that the great merchant and statesman was losing his mind. For some time his memory had been failing, and his span of attention to any matter got shorter and shorter. Finally in 1847, his wife had his financial affairs put into the hands of a conservator. That man was a prominent Augusta attorney, Asa Redington, Jr., son of the Waterville pioneer Asa Redington, Revolutionary veteran and member of George Washington’s honor guard.

It would be interesting to know why Redington was chosen to be William King’s conservator and was also named by King as executor of his will. Marion Smith, author of the latest biography of King, tells me that the King records which she examined gave no answer to that question. Perhaps their connection had originally been political, for Redington was a forceful member of King’s Jeffersonian party. It is also possible that, through their political association, King gave Redington some legal business, for King is known to have employed more than one lawyer. In any event, Redington’s service as King’s conservator and executor was one of several links that William King had with Waterville for lawyer Redington has been born in this town.

King could not meet philanthropic obligations which he had incurred. His wife wrote to the president of Bowdoin College that King’s name should be removed from the list of large donors to erect the Bowdoin chapel, because he could not pay the final installment on his generous pledge. But, because King had for many years been so generous to Bowdoin, the trustees wanted to publish his name as one of the chapel donors.

A year after King’s death in 1852, his big farm near Kingfield was sold at auction to meet one of his debts. It was bought by James Dobbin, who had married a granddaughter of King’s brother-in-law and partner, Dr. Benjamin Porter. Thus in a way the property was kept in the family. Bit by bit, King’s Bath property was sold, and only a few months after his death the big mansion was sold by Executor Redington for the bargain price of $11,000.

William King died in the morning on June 17, 1852. The following week’s issue of the Bath Tribune gave no lengthy eulogy, but published only this brief account:

“William King, aged 84, died at his residence here on Thursday, June 17. He was born in Scarborough, son of a noted merchant and landowner, Rufus King. Unlike his older brother, Rufus, who was a graduate of Harvard, William was raised by the family to become a trader, an occupation for which education beyond the common school was considered unnecessary. Except for one term at Phillips Andover Academy, his education ended with the one-room common school.

“In 1794 he moved to Topsham, where he entered business with his brother-in-law, Dr. Benjamin Porter, dealing in lumber and shipping.

“In 1800 King moved to Bath, where he became the most distinguished man Maine has yet produced. He represented both Topsham and Bath in the Massachusetts Legislature, and it was largely though his efforts that Maine became a separate state.

“He was elected without opposition to become the first Governor of Maine, and was chosen chairman of the committee to erect the new State House at Augusta. He then became Commissioner of Customs at Bath. He had high military distinction, serving as Major General of the forces designated to protect the Maine coast in the War of 1812. He was an ardent Free Mason of the 32nd degree and he served as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Maine.”

While the newspaper account was modest, King’s funeral was something else. A lengthy procession accompanied the body, from mansion to grave. Led by the Bath Brass Band, a long line led the full contingent unit of troops called the Bath Grays, followed by large representation from the Masonic lodges at Bath, Brunswick, Wiscasset and Richmond, and a delegation from the Grand Lodge of Maine. Those units were followed by the hearse drawn by four white horses, behind which came the family and other mourners. Then followed the Governor and Council, the Mayor and Aldermen of Bath, and more than 200 citizens. King was buried in a Bath cemetery, where later the State of Maine furnished $500 for a monument.

Some of the many pieces of furniture and ornaments that decorated the King mansion, sold at auction, were later donated by the heirs of the purchasers to the Bath Museum, where they are now exhibited. His extensive library, auctioned for $300, eventually found its way to the Bath Public Library.

William King and Ann Frazier had two children: Mary Elizabeth born in 1817, and Cyrus William born in 1819. Cyrus became a Portland physician. Why he did not come to his father’s aid when the great man became mentally ill is hard to understand, yet it does have a reasonable explanation.

Mrs. King is said to have asked Cyrus in 1850 to come home and take over his father’s financial affiars. When he failed to do so, she turned to Asa Redington. The current biographer, Marion Smith, says that William King had never been close to his son. Cyrus became very fond of his mother, but rather aloof to his father. In 1850 Cyrus was attending Bowdoin Medical School. If, during earlier years, he had been closer to his father, he might have taken over the financial affairs. In any event, it was probably too late for anyone to save William King’s fortune. Not even the astute lawyer Asa Redington could do that.

William King had several interesting connections in Waterville besides that with Asa Redington, Jr. The connection began when King was serving in the Massachusetts Senate. There he heard the plea of Maine Baptists to establish in Maine a college under their direction. King was a Congregationalist and had seen little association with Maine Baptists. Why then did he respond to their plea for help in getting a college charter?

King had had a serious falling out with Bowdoin, where he was a prominent trustee. The Bowdoin treasurer was King’s brother-in-law and business partner, Dr. Benjamin Porter of Topsham. In 1814 the Bowdoin funds were found to be badly involved with Porter’s personal accounts. Considering their funds in jeopardy, the Bowdoin Trustees attached the property of his bondsman, William King. The result was that ships at King’s wharf, already loaded and ready for sea, were held up, his wharf and store were attached, and all his business was halted. King was incensed, and he declared he would have nothing more to do with Bowdoin. A long time later, after Porter was exonerated from any criminal action and all funds were restored, King became reconciled to Bowdoin, returned to its Board, and was a benefactor of the college until his last years.

Just two years prior, in 1812, King had been helpful to the Baptists by sponsoring the legislation which created the Maine Theological and Literary Institution. After the 1814 attachment of his property, King decided to take revenge by authorizing the new Baptist training school to grant degrees, a move which Bowdoin bitterly opposed, because it wanted no competition in Maine. King and the Baptists prevailed, however; and after his term as Maine’s first governor, he became, in 1821, the Waterville college’s most prominent trustee.

Preserved in the library of the Maine Historical Society in Portland are more than a dozen letters written by the first Colby president, Jeremiah Chaplin, to William King between 1820 and 1833 when Chaplin resigned. Again and again Chaplin sought King’s advice and help for the struggling college.

Another King connection with Waterville was through Colby’s famous graduate, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, who is nationally honored as a martyr to the cause of freedom of the press. He was killed by a mob in Alton, Illinois on November 7,1837. Every year now Colby College grants its Lovejoy Award to some prominent journalist who has faced unpopularity because of a similar stand.

In 1819, when Lovejoy was still a lad, he wrote from his home in Albion a letter to Maine’s recognized leader, William King. Lovejoy urgently sought King’s financial help to secure education at an academy and thence at college. We have no way of knowing how King responded, but we do know that Lovejoy did attend Waterville College where he secured his degree in 1826. While a senior in college, he conducted and was the only teacher in the grammar school set up to prepare boys for that college. That school later became Coburn Classical Institute.

It is sad to know that mental illness and financial distress marked William King’s last years. It is better that we remember him as the vigorous business and political leader of middle age, who is depicted in the magnificent statue by Simmons that stands in our national capitol in Washington, D.C.

Year: 1981