King, Thomas B.

Born: 1800-08-27 Palmer, Massachusetts

Died: 1864-05-10 Waresboro, Georgia

King received private tutoring and attended Westfield Academy. He studied law with his brother in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He earned admittance to the bar in Philadelphia in 1822 and started a practice in Waynesville, Georgia in 1823. He married Matilda Page in 1824, they had ten children. He moved to Saint Simons Island, Georgia, to engage in agricultural pursuits in 1826 and worked in local canal and railroad projects. King served as member of the Georgia Senate in 1832, 1834, 1835, and 1837. He served as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1833 and to the state Whig Party conventions in 1835 and 1843. King was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1836. He won election, as a Whig, to the U.S. House of Representatives serving from 1839-43. He failed to win reelection in 1842. He served as a delegate to the Whig National Convention in 1844. King won election back to Congress in 1845 and served until his resignation in 1850. He earned appointment from President Millard Fillmore to serve as collector of the Port of San Francisco, California in 1850 and served until he resigned in 1852. King returned to Saint Simons Island and served as a member of the State Senate in 1859. He served as delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore in 1860. Georgia's government appointed King a commissioner of Georgia in 1861 and he visited Europe in the interest of trade. King served as a commissioner of the Confederacy in Europe in 1861-63.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1337; Gravestone, Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery, Saint Simons Island, GA; Dean Fafoutis, "King, Thomas Butler," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 12:717-18.