James King of William

James King of William (January 28, 1822 – May 20, 1856) was a crusading San Francisco, California, newspaper editor whose assassination by James P. Casey, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in 1856 resulted in the establishment of the second San Francisco Vigilance Committee and changed the politics of the city. King was among the first newspapermen to be honored by the California Journalism Hall of Fame.

Family and education James King was born January 28, 1822, in the Georgetown district of Washington, D.C., the seventh and youngest son of William King, a native of Ireland. When he was age sixteen, he began to style himself "James King of William", to distinguish himself from other James Kings in the area.

It was said that "He was an eager student, acquired a fair knowledge of Latin and English literature, and learned to speak French, Spanish and some German."

California Placer mining Influenced by the letters of a brother, whose name was variously reported as Thomas, who assertedly wrote from Oregon, or as an elder brother, Henry, who wrote from California, King on May 24, 1848, sailed for Cartagena, Colombia, and made his way to the Pacific Ocean at the isthmus of Panama, where he was disappointed to find there was no ship on the west coast to take him north. He journeyed to Callao, Peru, and then Valparaiso, Chile, where, having heard about the gold strike in California, he purchased a stock of goods and hired nine men to sail with him to California aboard the Undine. After arrival on November 10, most of the men deserted him, but with the others he gathered enough gold near Hangtown (now Placerville), to make a "considerable financial success" of the placer mining venture. Soon he began trading gold coins or offering bills of trade for the miner's gold dust.

Medical historian John Long Wilson wrote that King "dared to expose scoundrels in both public and private domains; and by relentlessly pursuing a campaign against them, he changed the course of history in the beleaguered city." The California historian Rockwell Hunt said that King and James P. Casey, the editor of The Sunday Times and a member of the county Board of Supervisors, carried on a feud in their newspapers, resulting in "much personal enmity". On May 4, 1856, King's Bulletin reproduced articles from New York newspapers revealing that Casey had served a term in New York State's Sing Sing prison for grand larceny.

Assassination Shooting

At about 5 p.m. on May 14, 1856, Casey accosted King in the middle of Montgomery Street at Washington Street, asking "Are you armed?" and then, without waiting for an answer, aiming a "large Navy revolver" at the editor, he demanded that King "Draw and defend yourself." At the same time Casey fired one shot, the bullet striking King in the left chest near the armpit.

Second Vigilance Committee

James Casey and Charles Cora were hanged by the Committee of Vigilance on the same day that King of William was buried. It was said that James King of William "was the man who practically alone started the work of honest residents to the struggle of cleaning out the criminal element in power" in San Francisco at that time. After he was shot, "over ten thousand people crowded around the Montgomery Block to hear the latest on his condition. The crowd later retired to the Plaza, and soon a buzz went through the crowd that a Committee of Vigilance was forming." The citizenry, amounting to thousands of men, gave Casey a hearing, pronounced him guilty, and he was hanged on May 22, 1856, the day of King's funeral, along with at least one other man (Cora).

Funeral tribute After a church funeral service on May 22, a throng of mourners formed on Stockton Street to accompany King's remains to the Lone Mountain Cemetery.

Honors A tree in Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County, was named after James King of William, and in 1950 King was honored along with 42 other journalists by being memorialized in California's newspaper Hall of Fame in a month-long Centennial of California Journalism at Balboa Park, San Diego.