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Archibald Gracie King (July 11, 1821 – March 21, 1897) was a prominent American banker.

Early life

King was born on July 11, 1821, in Everton, England near Liverpool. He was one of eleven children born to Sarah Rogers (née Gracie) King and James G. King. Among his siblings was banker Edward King. His father later served as President of New York and Erie Railroad and later became a U.S. Representative from New Jersey.

His paternal grandparents were Mary (née Alsop) King, a daughter of John Alsop (a prominent merchant and Continental Congressman) and Rufus King, the first U.S. Senator from New York and the 3rd and 8th U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom (under Presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams). His maternal grandfather was Archibald Gracie, a Scottish-born shipping magnate and early American businessman and merchant in New York City and Virginia.

King was educated in America and at the school of Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg at Hofwyl near Bern, Switzerland, before attending Harvard College, from where he graduated in 1840, thirty years after his father.

Career

After Harvard, King became a clerk at Prime, Ward & King, where he became a partner in 1844. In 1846, King and his family left the firm and started James G. King & Son, which his father ran until his death in 1853 and then Archibald became senior partner of.

He was elected trustee of the Institution for the Savings of Merchants' Clerks in 1861, treasurer in 1865, and president in 1873. Upon his retirement and relocation to New Jersey in 1881, he ended his affiliation with the bank ("the laws of New York requiring trustees of savings banks to be residents of New York"). He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, and a trustee of the Metropolitan Trust Company.

Personal life

On May 8, 1845, King was married to Elizabeth Denning Duer (1821–1900), a daughter of Hannah Maria (née Denning) Duer and William Alexander Duer, the 7th President of Columbia University. Her grandfathers were U.S. Representative William Denning and Continental Congressman William Duer. Together, they were the parents of:

• Gracie King (1846–1846), who died young.
• Maria Denning King (1848–1925), an author who married John King Van Rensselaer, a son of Henry Bell Van Rensselaer and grandson of Stephen Van Rensselaer III.
• Sara Gracie King (1850–1931), who married Frederic Bronson in 1875. After his death in 1900, she married Adrian George Iselin Jr. in 1914.
• Frederick Gore King (1852–1937), who married Jessie Arklay, eldest daughter of Patrick Arklay, in 1877. After her death he married Marion Morrison, the librarian of the New York Society Library; he was secretary and treasurer of the Knickerbocker Trust Company.
• Alexander Duer King (1856–1857), who died young.

King died on March 21, 1897, of bronchitis after a lingering illness at "Highwood," his country estate near Weehawken, New Jersey. After a funeral at Calvary Church in New York, he was buried at Grace Episcopal Church in Jamaica, Queens.

Descendants

Through his daughter Maria, he was a grandfather of John Alexander Van Rensselaer, who married Helen F. Galindo in 1896, and who was arrested in 1908 for attempting to extort $5,000 from his mother; and Frederick Harold Van Rensselaer (1874–1903), who married Josephine Lucy Grinnell (a daughter of Robert Minturn Grinnell and Sophie Van Alen).

Through his daughter Sara, he was a grandfather of Elizabeth Duer Bronson (1877–1914), who married Ambassador Lloyd Carpenter Griscom (a son of shipping magnate Clement Griscom).

Through his son Frederick, he was a grandfather of women's rights entrepreneur Alice Gore King.

References

1. ^ Hall, Henry (1895). America's Successful Men of Affairs: The city of New York. New York tribune. pp. 369–370. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
2. "Obituaries. James G. King, Esq". The New York Times. 5 October 1853. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
3. "KING, James Gore - Biographical Information". bioguide.congress.gov. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
4. York, Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New (1905). The Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York: History, Customs, Record of Events, Constitution, Certain Genealogies, and Other Matters of Interest. V. 1-. The Saint Nicholas Society. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
5. Adams, John (July 4, 2016). Papers of John Adams, Volume 18: December 1785 - January 1787. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674545076. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
6. "KING, Rufus - Biographical Information". bioguide.congress.gov. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
7. ^ Society, National American (1907). Americana, American Historical Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 1. pp. 402–403. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
8. Valentine's Manual of Old New-York. Valentine's Manual, Incorporated. 1917. p. 229. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
9. Virkus, Frederick Adams; Marquis, Albert Nelson (1925). The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy: First Families of America. A.N. Marquis. p. 273. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
10. ^ The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. 1879. pp. 112–113. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
11. Sullivan, Robert G. (1911). "Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs: Van Rensselaer Vol. IV". www.schenectadyhistory.org. Schenectady County Public Library. pp. 1814–1821. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
12. "MRS. ADRIAN ISELIN DIES IN HER SLEEP; Wife of Banking House's Head Is Stricken in Her 81st Year. A SOCIETY CONSERVATIVE Was a Descendant of the King, Duer and Gracie Families, Long Prominent in This City". The New York Times. 5 April 1931. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
13. "MRS. ISELIN'S FUNERAL.; 200 Persons of Prominence at the Services in Grace Church". The New York Times. 7 April 1931. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
14. "DEATH LIST OF A DAY. Frederic Bronson". The New York Times. 30 March 1900. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
15. "ADRIAN ISELIN AND MRS. BRONSON WED; Banker and Widow of Frederic Bronson Married in Rectory of St. Patrick's Cathedral". The New York Times. 20 February 1914. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
16. ^ "FREDERICK G. KING, RETIRED BANKER, 85; Member of Old American Family Was Graduate of Harvard in 1875-Dies at Home Here". The New York Times. 2 November 1937. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
17. "DIED -- KING". The New York Times. 10 March 1895. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
18. Roosevelt, Edith Kermit Carow (1920). Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt Letters to Marion Morrison King and Alice Gore King. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
19. Sherman, Lauren; Gaulkin, Ellen Robb (2009). Weehawken. Arcadia Publishing. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-7385-6268-1. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
20. "DIED -- KING". The New York Times. 25 March 1897. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
21. Lewis, Cecil Day (1970). The Whispering Roots. Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-61817-5. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
22. Bergen, Tunis Garret (1915). Genealogies of the State of New York: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
23. "J.A. VAN RENSSELAER ACCUSED BY MOTHER; Arrested for Writing a Letter Demanding Money and Threatening to Kill Her. ADMITS THAT HE WROTE IT Mother Is Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer, Prominent in Society Here and in Newport". The New York Times. 21 July 1908. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
24. "MRS. L. C. GRISCOM DEAD.; Wife of ex-Ambassador to Rome Succumbs in Hotel St. Regis". The New York Times. 17 November 1914. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
25. "GRISCOM-BRONSON NUPTIALS.; United States Minister to Persia Takes a Wife in London". The New York Times. 3 November 1901. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
26. "ALICE GORE KING, 92: Educator and writer". The Ridgefield Press. May 30, 2007.
27. "Paid Notice: Deaths KING, ALICE GORE". The New York Times. May 31, 2007. Retrieved 17 November 2021.

External links

• Archibald Gracie King at Find a Grave

• 1821 births
• 1897 deaths
• Harvard University alumni
• American bankers