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Biographical Info
John Pendleton King (April 3, 1799 – March 19, 1888) was a prominent attorney, railroad executive and politician who served as a United States Senator from Georgia.
King was born in Glasgow, Kentucky, in 1799, but his family moved to Bedford County, Tennessee. In 1815, the family moved to Augusta, Georgia.
King, a graduate of the Academy of Richmond County, was admitted to the bar in 1819 and started practicing law in Augusta. He married Mary Louise Woodward, and they had three children, two daughters and a son.
King’s served in the Georgia state constitutional conventions of 1830 and 1833.
He was appointed Court of Common Pleas judge in 1831 and elected to the United States Senate in 1833 as a Jacksonian, later a Democrat. He served until 1837, resigning amid a financial panic he attributed to President Andrew Jackson’s policies.
After leaving politics, King was elected president of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company in 1841, a position he held until 1878. He promoted railroad development and cotton manufacturing in Georgia.
King’s plantation holdings included owning 68 slaves by 1860 to work his extensive cotton fields.
King’s legacy includes the city of Kingston, Georgia, named in his honor, and Pendleton King Park in Augusta, named after his grandson. The Western & Atlantic Railroad also named a locomotive in his honor.
He passed away in Summerville, Georgia, and was interred in St. Paul’s Churchyard in Augusta, Georgia.