|
David Ward King (October 27, 1857 – February 9, 1920) was an American farmer and inventor of the King road drag. His invention, which was the horse-drawn forerunner of the modern road grader, had a great influence on American life because his invention improved the widespread dirt roads of his day to the extent that they could accommodate the advent of the automobile, rural mail delivery and mail order catalogues. ==Family and early life== King was often referred to then and now as "the Missouri farmer", which he was. However, he was born, reared and educated in Springfield, Ohio, and came from a very prominent and wealthy family of that city. David Ward King was the grandson of his namesake, Springfield merchant and real estate developer David King. His paternal grandfather, David King, was probably born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1796. His paternal grandmother, Almena Caldwell King, was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire on August 16, 1809. However, she moved with her parents when she was young to early Portsmouth, Ohio, which is in southernmost Ohio at the confluence of the Scioto River and the Ohio River, where her father established a successful carpentry business. Both of Ward's paternal grandparents had been orphans. Ward's grandfather, David King, was found as a toddler wandering the streets of Baltimore during a yellow fever epidemic in which both his parents presumably died. David knew only his own name and could tell nothing about his parents. He was found in a Baltimore hotel and taken in by a Robert Quigley who had a farm near Shippensburg, Pennsylvania and who had "wagoned" to Baltimore for supplies.〔Rev. Luther A. Gotwald, D.D, ''David King'' (Circa 1880), unpublished. (Luther's bio of David & Almena on line with commentary ) Hard copy of original held by Clark County Public Library, Springfield, Ohio.〕 While Robert Quigley did rear and educate David King on his Cumberland County, Pennsylvania farm, he did not adopt him, which is why David's last name stayed King. The Quigleys were devout members of the nearby Middle Spring Presbyterian Church. David King grew up, regularly attending that church, which began a strong tradition of religious correctness in the King family that beyond question made its way down to Ward.〔(Bio of Robert Quigley on line. ) A hard copy of this biography is held by the State Library of Pennsylvania, Call number 929.1 Sw77. Robert Quigley was also the uncle of Captain Samuel Brady and Major General Hugh Brady, sons of his sister, Mary Quigley Brady. Swope, p.140. Captain Brady is still remembered for having leaped the Cuyahoga River near present-day Kent, Ohio to escape pursuing Indians in what is known today as "Brady's Leap". There is a park in Kent today and a rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike named "Brady's Leap" in his honor. Samuel Brady was a foster cousin to David King. However, Samuel Brady died in 1895, before David King was born, which means they never met. However, as close as David remained to the Quigley descendants, it is highly likely that David at least knew his foster first cousin, Major General Hugh Brady.〕 Upon attaining adulthood, Ward's grandfather David King obtained an apprenticeship as a store clerk in Portsmouth, Ohio, where he met Ward's grandmother, then-teenage Almena Caldwell. However, her older brother and father fell from a small boat and drowned in the nearby Scioto River. Soon thereafter, Almena's mother died of grief. Her Uncle Hannibal Gilman Hamlin (first cousin to Lincoln's first Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin) became the guardian of her and her brother, Hamlin Caldwell, moved them to Cincinnati and saw to their education. David King married her there when she was seventeen.〔David King's obituary says they married in Portsmouth, but there is no record of that marriage in Portsmouth. Rowdies burned the court house in Cincinnati during the War of 1812. So there is no record of their marriage in Cincinnati. However, the Hamlin family history (Andrews, H. Franklin. ''A Genealogy of James Hamlin of Barnstable, Massachusetts''. Exira, IA, 1902) says they married in Cincinnati, which makes sense since Almena was living there at the time.〕 After their marriage, David and Almena soon moved to Tarlton, Ohio, where David put his store clerking experience to good use by opening a general store. Tarlton was on Zane's Trace, which at the time started at the Ohio River across from Wheeling, West Virginia, and passed through Zanesville, Lancaster, the intermittent state capital of Chillicothe and ended at the Ohio River in their previous home town of Portsmouth. The store prospered and David starting investing in real estate, which built their wealth substantially over their years in Tarlton. All did not go well for David and Almena, however. As David often did, he took his wagon "across the mountains" to Baltimore to get supplies for his store—a trip that would take him a month every time he did it. While he was away for his trip in the late summer of 1831, he left Almena in Tarlton with their infant children, as he always had until then. Tragically, their three young sons, Alexander Caldwell King, born September 5, 1827, James Hamlin King, born July 3, 1829 and John Quigley King, born July 24, 1831 all died of smallpox within weeks of each other on August 27, August 28 and September 20, 1831.〔Gotwald, John, Stories of King Family and Its Part in the Development of Downtown Springfield, p.1. Available at the Heritage Center Library, Clark County Historical Society, Springfield, Ohio. This history gives an account of the early days of David King that is clearly inaccurate. The biography of David King written by Luther Alexander Gotwald is clearly much more accurate. This footnote is just to document that the first three King children died of smallpox.〕 Almena had to deal with this catastrophe alone. Ward's father, Robert Quigley King, who was born on August 13, 1832 in Tarlton, was their first child to survive. Understandably, Almena insisted on going along with David on his supply trips after that, carrying with her the infant Robert Quigley King as a babe in arms. Their next child was Samuel Noble King, who was born in Tarlton on October 22, 1834. He went all his life by his middle name of "Noble". The Kings named him after their country neighbor, Samuel Noble, who had come from Emmitsburg, Maryland to become one of the first settlers of Tarlton and who had a large farm just south of Tarlton.〔(Samuel Noble bio )〕 Mary Elizabeth King, was born to David and Almena in Tarlton on April 1, 1837, and David King, Jr., later to become a Civil War colonel, was born in Tarlton on September 11, 1839. As time passed, Tarlton began to lose some of its importance. The state capital was moved from nearby Chillicothe (its last location outside Columbus) to Columbus, Ohio in 1816, and the National Road (present U.S. Route 40 or more roughly Interstate 70) went through the center of Ohio. This road started at Baltimore and ending in Illinois. So, the focus of commerce in Ohio shifted from the communities along Zane's Trace to the center of the state. Among the cities the National Road crossed was Springfield, Ohio, where it arrived in 1836 and stopped for ten years while lawmakers argued about where it would go from there. Located at that terminus, Springfield especially boomed during those ten years. Several of Robert Quigley's grandchildren, the Rodgers families, had moved to Springfield. David's childhood companions were Robert Quigley's Rodgers grandchildren instead of Robert's children. Robert Quigley probably took in David King out of "empty nest syndrome", since his own children were grown and likely out on their own at the time he found David. According to the Quigley Family History, Robert Quigley's second daughter Jennet "Jane" Quigley married James Rodgers, her Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, neighbor, and continued to live near the Robert Quigley farm. So, it was Robert Quigley's grandchildren, Richard Rodgers, Mary Rodgers, Rachel Rodgers, Dr. Robert Rogers and William Rodgers who lived close to the Quigley farm during David's childhood. They would have been the children with whom David King grew up and with whom he would have been particularly close. Their daughter Mary Rodgers married a Cumberland County neighbor, Isaac Ward. Their daughter Rachel Rodgers never married. Their son, Dr. Robert Rodgers, married Effie Harrison, daughter of a Pennsylvania Militia brigadier general. Their son William Rodgers married the sister of Effie Sarah Harrison. All of these Quigley grandchildren, their spouses and families, apparently except Eleanor, moved to Springfield, Ohio in 1831 (source in footnote says 1833). Modern day Littleton & Rue Funeral Home now occupies the Rodgers mansion at 830 North Limestone Street, Springfield, Ohio.〔 Its web site has this to say about the Rodgers family in Springfield. "Dr. Robert Rodgers came to Springfield in 1833. He was born September 17, 1807 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. The young physician lived with his wife, Effie Harrison Rodgers, and their seven children in a large two story brick house that stood on the north east corner of North Limestone Street and North Street. This site is now occupied by the Springfield News/Sun Newspaper plant. A few doors up North Street in a house that early Clark County Historians describe as "handsome" lived his brother and sister-in-law, William and Sarah Harrison Rodgers. These two brothers worked very closely together. When William first came to Clark county in 1832, he was a merchant. When ill health caused his retirement from that field, he bought a tract of "wild" land north of the city. He supervised the clearing and the partial improvements to the land. Then in 1851 he was a constituent member of the company who organized the Springfield Bank. Located on the west side of North Limestone Street close to Main Street, it later became The First National Bank. William would serve on the Board of Directors for many years. While no children were mentioned for William and Sarah, Dr. Rodger's two sons would become very active in the banking industry. Three doors south of the bank Dr. Rodgers had his office. Here was organized the Clark County Medical Society on May 31, 1850 with Dr. Rodgers serving as the President. At one meeting of the Medical Society, Dr. Rodgers, being a skilled surgeon, read a paper describing a new operation he had performed, the first Cesarean Section done in Clark County. A few years after his arrival in Springfield, he began buying land in the northern section of Springfield. In 1848 he laid out the first of five additions. In 1909 a Richard Rodgers laid out the sixth. These additions include the area north from Chestnut Street to the alley between Cassilly and Cecil streets and from North Limestone Street to Rodgers Drive. On an early city map, they list Limestone Street as the "Urbana Pike." Also listed for this area were streets by the name of Gallagher, Hill, Center and Race." The web site also states the comedian Jonathan Winters is a direct lineal descendant of this family and thereby of Robert Quigley as well.(Rodgers family in Springfield ) 〕 Likely on their urging, David and Almena King moved to Springfield as well in 1840. David, a very astute businessman, who was already very well off, proceeded to build a significant portion of early downtown Springfield, which was known for long thereafter as "King's Row".〔''Sketches of Springfield: Containing an Account of the Early Settlement'', "By a Citizen", January 1, 1952, p.41. (Sketches of Springfield on line ) Hard copy of original held by Clark County Public Library, Springfield, Ohio. 〕 Their daughter, Sarah Jane King, was born to them in Springfield on December 20, 1841. Their daughter Almena Caldwell King was also born there on February 1, 1848. Unfortunately, David King died on August 8, 1849 in a cholera epidemic, which he contracted while caring for other victims of the outbreak.〔''Obituary of David King'', Weekly Republic newspaper (long defunct Springfield newspaper), Springfield, Ohio on Tuesday, August 10, 1849, Volume 10, Number 51, Page 3, columns 1 & 2. (David King obituary on line. )〕 After her husband's death, Almena frugally held on to the family wealth. She built a large home at 2 Ferncliff Place in Springfield in about 1852, which was long known as the King Homestead. The Springfield City Directory of that time located it simply as "North of Buck Creek." Buck Creek, which is probably wide enough to be called a river at that point, has long marked the north boundary of downtown Springfield. There are tall limestone cliffs on both sides of it. Isaac Ward cut building stone from these cliffs, at the location of present-day Cliff Park in Springfield, that later became part of many of the early buildings in Springfield.〔""A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio, Volume II'', Benjamin F. Prince, President of the Clark County Historical Society, The American Historical Society, New York and Chicago, 1922, p. 404.〕 There was only the Limestone Street footbridge across Buck Creek at the time Almena King built the King Homestead, and that footbridge was more than a block upstream.〔Gotwald, John, Stories of King Family and Its Part in the Development of Downtown Springfield, p.2.〕 She bought this land from Robert Quigley's grandson-in-law, Isaac Ward, who lived across the street on present-day Fountain (then Market). The Isaac Ward Mansion still stands today and is still occupied. The Kings and the Quigley descendants remained very close, which is why Ward's father gave him the middle name of "Ward", and Ward went by that middle name all his life. One family account credits Isaac Ward with having been particularly helpful to the King family after the death of David King.〔Gotwald, John, Stories of King Family and Its Part in the Development of Downtown Springfield, p.1.〕 Isaac Ward also sold a large tract of his land to Wittenberg College, which now forms the eastern part of its campus and is the reason the main road through present day Wittenberg University is Ward Street.〔Isaac Ward, born October 2, 1796 near Portsmouth, Scioto Co., Ohio and died pm April 3, 1863 at Springfield, Ohio. His parents William Ward and Polly Harrison Ward were married in Pennsylvania on October 31, 1793, removed to Ohio soon after, settled near Portsmouth, where Isaac Ward their second son was born. His father was drowned while crossing the Ohio river in a small boat, and his uncle, John Harrison, went from Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, to his sister, and took her family on the backs of two horses to Pennsylvania with him. Isaac Ward settled near Newburg, Pennsylvania in the immediate vicinity of the Rodgers homestead, married, and engaged in the woolen manufacturing business. His health became impaired and after his removal with his wife, child, and the Rodgers family to Springfield, Ohio, in 1833, he was not actively identified with any business affairs, although he made investments in land, owned a farm, and opened the stone quarry which his grandson Isaac Ward Frey later owned. His old home farm has been for many years within the corporate limits of the city, a part of its enterprising development. He was of the highest type of character, both as a citizen and a Christian gentleman. He wrote a beautiful hand, and made a study of the Bible, was well versed in its truths, and noted many comments on paper, expressive of his thoughts. He was self educated, and his good judgment and counsel were relied upon by business friends throughout his life. He was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church, and his house was an abiding place for all visiting ministers, who were given all the comforts of home. He and his wife united by certificate from the Middle Spring Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania with the First Presbyterian Church at Springfield, and with the rapid growth in members and demands for a larger house of worship or another organization composed of a number of the First Church adherents, were among the charter members of the Second Church, which soon increased in size and became as prosperous and well established as its parent. Mary Rodgers Ward and her husband were consecrated to christian work." Swope, pp.258–259〕 The King Homestead was out in the country when first built, which was to get her boys away from the reported 122 saloons near their home in Springfield proper.〔Gotwald, John, Stories of King Family and Its Part in the Development of Downtown Springfield, p. 1–2.〕 All three of her sons attended nearby Wittenberg College.〔Luther Alexander Gotwald, Jr., ''The Gotwald Trial Revisited'', Davidsville, Pennsylvania, 1992, p.73. There is more than one version of this book. The version held by the (Wittenberg University Library. ) is the one referred to in this footnote.〕 Almena Caldwell King died of diabetes on May 30, 1878, from which she had suffered greatly for a long time before it finally claimed her. Her son-in-law, famous Lutheran minister and later Wittenberg professor Luther Alexander Gotwald, happened to drop in while passing through Springfield on a train and was able to greatly comfort her during her last hours. The King Homestead stayed in the King family for a long time after Almena's death. However, eventually it was sold to Chi Omega Sorority of Wittenberg University and is today its sorority house. After Almena's death, Rev. Gotwald wrote a loving biography of David and Almena in which he penned this moving tribute to his late father in law. Of all the descendants of the first David King, his creative and industrious grandson, David Ward King undoubtedly did the most to live up to the spirit and the letter of Rev. Gotwald's heartfelt counsel. David Ward King was born on October 27, 1857 in Springfield, Ohio. His father was real estate developer, investor and Springfield Fire Chief, Robert Quigley King.〔The barely legible note at the bottom of the photo that the name of the lady sitting next to David Ward King, when he was a toddler, is "Minerva 'Minnie" King", the "niece" of R.Q. (Robert Quigley) King is wrong. "Minnie King" was Almena Calwell King and she was the sister of Ward's father, Robert Quigley King. No one in this King family was ever named "Minerva".〕 His mother was Harriet Danforth King. As mentioned, Robert Quigley King, was born in Tarlton, Ohio, and was the first child of Almena and David King to survive. Robert Quigley King came to a largely undeveloped Springfield at age nine in 1840, with his sister, Mary Elizabeth, age three and his brother, David Jr. age one. He attended the early Springfield schools. He later recalled hunting for squirrels in a woods that later became the train station (now demolished) and what would be close to the location of the present Clark County Library. His father died when he was eighteen. Nonetheless, his mother was able to send him and, as they arrived at college age, his brothers to Wittenberg College. At one time, she had them all in college at the same time—and Almena could afford that. When Robert Quigley King first started at Wittenberg, it held classes in the lecture room of the First Lutheran Church. However, while he was a student, Wittenberg moved to what is now the western part of its present-day campus. He was in the first class to graduate from Wittenberg. The history of early Springfield mentions how much he liked to hunt, especially in the woods that later became today's Snyder Park, which would have been just down Buck Creek from his childhood home at the King Homestead.〔""A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio, Volume II'', Benjamin F. Prince, President of the Clark County Historical Society, The American Historical Society, New York and Chicago, 1922, p. 118.〕 Robert Q. King married Miss Harriet A. Danforth at New Albany, Indiana on January 15, 1857. To them were born five children: David Ward King on October 27, 1857; Dr. Thomas Danforth King, who was born on July 20, 1859 and who died December 23, 1889; Robert Leffler King, who was born on August 24, 1863; Almena Adaline King (Warrick), who was born on September 17, 1869; and Margaret "Madge" Caldwell King, who was born on February 13, 1873 and who died when she was fourteen years old on December 30, 1886. Ward's ill-fated brother, Dr. Thomas Danforth King, was a graduate of Princeton and a practicing physician in Springfield. He took his name from his direct ancestor, Thomas Danforth, who was Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, a founder of Harvard College, a judge at the Salem witch trials and on whose estate the city of Framingham, Massachusetts is situated today. Framingham has a museum named after him.〔(Danforth Museum Web Site. )〕 There was a Thomas Danforth in every generation after that, until Dr. Thomas Danforth King, who died before he married his fiancée and had children. He died a slow and painful death from cancer of the eye, in his parents' home with his fiancée at his side.〔Republic Times, Springfield, Ohio, Thursday, December 26, 1888. (Obituary of Dr. Thomas Danforth King )〕 His death left David Ward King and Robert Leffler King as the surviving sons of Robert Quigley and Harriet King. Ward's sister, Almena Adaline King, married industrialist Harvey Warrick in Springfield, Ohio. She died December 18, 1941 in Cleveland, and he died on April 21, 1942. As Almena's oldest child, Robert Quigley King soon became involved in helping his mother manage the family's real estate holdings in Springfield. He had several retail businesses in Springfield, but his primary activity seems to have been real estate development. The family built the King Building on what was then Market Street and later became Fountain Street, just north of High Street. The King Building became the headquarters for the temperance movement in Springfield and also the location for Bumgardner Studio, where many of the photos of the people who lived in Springfield in the late 19th century were taken. He subdivided land on present-day North Wittenberg Avenue, just south of Wittenberg University, into the "Robert Quigley King Second Addition to the City of Springfield, Ohio." He built his own home at 642 North Wittenberg Avenue. He later moved to live in an apartment in the King Building, allowing his son Robert Leffler King to occupy it. Upon his death, he left the house to his daughter Almena King Warrick and her husband Harvey Warrick. Robert Quigley King served as Fire Chief for Springfield from 1879 until 1891. His obituary and the History of the Springfield Fire Department both credit him with being Springfield's second Fire Chief. However, the Fire Department History goes on to point out that several others before him performed that function, but did not carry the title. In those days, Fire Chief was an elected position. It is mentioned both in his obituary and in King family tradition that during a fire at the "whip factory", he was on a roof that collapsed, dumping him into the midst of the flames. However, the other firemen immediately poured their hoses on him, saving his life.〔August 3, 2006 report in Springfield Fire Department Blog, (Springfield Fire Department Blog )〕 He was pulled from the fire, badly injured, but alive.〔See ''Obituary of Robert Quigley King'' (son of David King), Daily News, Springfield, Ohio on Tuesday, November 27, 1917, p.1, for an account of how David King died. (On line account of David's death in the obituary of his son, Robert Quigley King. )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「David Ward King」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|