Charles King (educator)

King was born in New York City on March 16, 1789. He was the son of lawyer and politician Rufus King (1755–1827) and his wife Mary (née Alsop) King (1769–1819). Among his siblings was brothers John Alsop King, a Governor of New York; James Gore King, a U.S. Representative; Edward King; and Frederick Gore King. a descendant of early American settlers, John Edward Underhill, Captain John Underhill, and Elizabeth Fones. King was educated at the Harrow School (in Harrow, London) where he was a classmate with Lord Byron. Later in life, he received an honorary LL.D. from the College of New Jersey (later known as Princeton University) and from Harvard College in 1850. ==Career==

After completing his education in England, King became a clerk in the banking house of Hope & Co. in Amsterdam. King returned to the United States in 1806, and began working for Archibald Gracie, a merchant. He became partner with Gracie in 1810, the same year he married Gracie's daughter, Eliza. A Democrat, he was editor of the New York American from 1823 to 1845, where he repeatedly clashed with Mordecai Noah, then Editor of the New York Enquirer; Noah nicknamed King "Charles the Pink". President of Columbia College On 7 November 1849, he succeeded Nathaniel Fish Moore to become the ninth president of Columbia College (now Columbia University), holding the role until 1864. During his term as President, the Columbia Law School was founded (1858), the Columbia Medical School, which had been discontinued in 1810, was re-established (1858), and the Columbia School of Mines (1863). ==Personal life==

On March 12, 1810, he married first to Eliza Gracie (1790–1825), the eldest surviving daughter of shipping magnate Archibald Gracie. Eliza's sister Sarah Gracie was married to Charles' brother James, another sister, Esther Rogers Gracie, was married to the Lt. Gov. of Rhode Island William Beach Lawrence, and her youngest sister, Mary Ann Gracie, was married to Judge Michael Ulshoeffer. Before his wife's untimely death in 1825, they were the parents of eight children together, including: • Eliza Gracie King (1810–1883), who married Rev. Charles Henry Halsey (1810–1855) • Archibald Gracie King (1821–1823), who died in childhood grandson of William Paterson (1745–1806), a U.S. Senator, Governor of New Jersey and Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The year following Eliza's death in 1825, Charles married secondly Henrietta Liston Low (1799–1882) on October 20, 1826. Henrietta was the daughter of Nicholas Low, a merchant and member of the New York State Assembly. Before King's death in 1867, they were the parents of six children, including: • Mary Alsop King (1839–1894), who became a writer and married William Henry Waddington (1826–1894), the Prime Minister of France. King died in Frascati, Italy in October 1867 and was temporarily interred in a vault in the Protestant cemetery in Rome. He is buried in the Grace Church Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens, New York, New York. Descendants King was the grandfather of Charles King (1844–1933), a major general with the United States Army as well as a noted author, who married Adelaide L. Yorke. ==References==