Andrew Jackson King

Andrew Jackson King (1833–1923) or A. J. King, an early settler who played a part in the early history of the city of Los Angeles and held both State and city offices as a lawman, lawyer, legislator and judge.

Andrew Jackson King was born in Cherokee Purchase Land in Union County, Georgia. Later his father, Samuel King, who was a tanner and a saddler, took the family to Helena, Arkansas. In 1849 the family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory. In 1852, Samuel King brought his family and forty or fifty other families of pioneers overland to El Monte the oldest American settlement in Los Angeles County, located along the San Gabriel River, was inhabited by a mixture of emigrants, largely Texans. The King family laid out a town there which was called Lexington.

King studied law in Los Angeles with Judge Hayes, the first district Judge of the County. Then these two young lawyers and Judge Scott opened a law office on Main Street a short distance south of the Plaza. King became the first County Clerk of San Bernardino County in 1853.

In March, 1854, A. J. King was one of the members of the California Militia Company called the Monte Rangers, organized by John G. Downey and others.[1][2] The unit was active operating against Indian raiders and bandits that plagued Southern California after they were driven out of San Francisco and the northern gold fields by vigilantes.

In 1859 King was elected a member of the California State Assembly and was on the committee which located the site for the State Capitol. From 1861 to 1865 A. J. King served as an Undersheriff of Los Angeles County and made many arrests. During the secession crisis of 1861, he tried to form another militia Company like the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles, the Monte Mounted Rifles, both units with secessionist sympathies. On April 26, 1861, the Monte Mounted Rifles asked Governor Downey for arms. However A. J. King ran afoul of Federal authorities. According to the Sacramento Union of April 30, 1861 King was brought before Colonel Carleton, and was made to take an oath of allegiance to the Union and was then released. The governor sent the arms, but army officers at San Pedro held them up preventing the activation of the Monte Mounted Rifles.

King did not flee eastward to the Confederacy with the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles and continued his secessionist activities. On April 10, 1862, as the United States Marshall for Southern California, Henry D. Barrows, wrote to the commander of the Department of Pacific of the Union Army in San Francisco, complaining of anti-Union sentiment in Southern California. The letter says such sentiment "permeates society here among both the high and the low," and reports:

"A. J. King, under-sheriff of this county, who has been a bitter secessionist, who said to me that he owed no allegiance to the United States Government; that Jeff Davis’was the only constitutional government we had, and that he remained here because he could do more harm to the enemies of that Government by staying here than going there; brought down on the Senator (a steam ship) Tuesday last a large lithograph gilt-framed portrait of Beauregard, the rebel general, which he flaunted before a large crowd at the hotel when he arrived. I induced Colonel Carleton to have him arrested as one of the many dangerous secessionists living in our midst, and to-day he was taken to Camp Drum. He was accompanied by General Volney E. Howard as counsel, and I have but little hope that he will be retained in custody."[3]

He was released and that same year he was married to Laura Evertson, and remained in office as Undersheriff to 1865. While Undersheriff, King's investigation of the murder of the wealthy ranchero John Rains resulted in a bitter feud with Rain's friend and brother-in-law Robert Carlisle when he failed to get a conviction of the suspected murderer Jose Ramon Carrillo. The dispute festered between the friends and families of both men for some time and became known as the King-Carlisle Feud. At a ball held in Los Angeles on July 5, 1865, Carlisle attacked King but friends separated the men. The next day, King's brothers, Frank and Houston, had a shoot out with Tom Carlisle inside the saloon of the Bella Union Hotel (owned by another brother, John King) the Bella Union in downtown Los Angeles, resulting in the death of Frank King and Robert Carlisle.[4]

In 1865, King became a law partner of Judge Murray Morrison. From 1865 to 1870 he was also one of the proprietors and editors of the Los Angeles News. In 1866 and 1867 he was City Attorney and in 1869, County Judge. In 1873 he printed and published the first city directory. He was one of the founders of the County Agricultural Society in 1871. He was active in aiding and inaugurating many of the early municipal projects of the city of Los Angeles.

On October 14, 1923, Judge Andrew J. King died at his home in Boyle Heights, 90 years old and the oldest member of the bar in Los Angeles.

References

  1. ^ Monte Rangers
  2. ^ Military Units in Southern California, Part II Los Angeles, Monte Rangers
  3. ^ Roger M. Grace, Candidate With Pro-Slavery Views Elected District Attorney in 1863, Metropolitan News-Enterprise, Tuesday, August 15, 2006, Page 7
  4. ^ Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913, containing the reminiscences of Harris Newmark, Edited by Maurice H. Newmark, Marco R. Newmark, Nickerbocker Press, New York, 1916.
General sources