Charles King, c.1900

As a great-grandson of Charles King (1837-1915) and King family genealogist, permit me to make some corrections and additions to your brief history of Charles King. He was born in the hamlet of Zvirotitz on the Moldau River about 55 kms SSW of Prague. Orphaned in 1848 when an epidemic took the lives of his parents, Samuel and Rosalie, he and three brothers were taken into an uncle's tannery in Prague in the early/mid 1850s. Charles King emigrated to the United States in 1857 and was joined a year later by his brother, Joseph. Family oral history records that he manufactured the leather belts that drove the engines for the boilers on the iron-clad Monitor in its famous clash during the American Civil War with the Confederate iron-clad Merrimac. In 1863, Charles and Joseph came to Whitby and leased the Burns tannery which they later purchased. Charles was quite active in local politics serving on the Whitby Town Council, the Board of Education and around 1903 was Chairman of the Whitby Board of Trade. He was a member of the Liberal Party; in 1896 he narrowly lost the Liberal Party nomination for the Ontario South seat in the House of Commons. He was Warden of the County of Ontario in 1897. Charles King died in 1915 leaving a wife, Henrietta, 6 sons, and two daughters.

yours respectfully,

Paul King Jerusalem, Israel 2 December 2009