Hines, H. K. "An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon." Chicago: Lewis
Pub. Co. 1893.  p. 390.

AMOS N. KING
     A widely and favorably known Oregon pioneer of 1845, and a prosperous
citizen of Portland, was born in Franklin county, Ohio, April 30, 1822.  His
father, Nathan King, married Sarah Norton, of New York, and they had ten
children, six daughters and four sons, five children still surviving.
     The subject of our sketch was the sixth child and was reared on his
father's farm.  He attended the public schools and learned the tanner's trade.
In 1840 he moved to Missouri, where he was engaged in running a ferry across the
Missouri river, when a great flood destroyed his property.  In 1845 he
accompanied his parents , three brothers and five sisters, who joined a company
of 100 wagons, and started across the plains for Oregon.  They started early in
May and met with many trials and misfortunes on the way.  A brother and his wife
died of mountain fever and they were sorrowfully buried by the wayside.  The
distressing experiences of that long journey have never been effaced from their
memory, and probably no amount of money could induce them to repeat it.
However, their experience was that of thousands and it was thus the West was
settled and developed, only three-quarters reaching their destination of all
those who started on the long journey.
     On arriving at The Dalles Mr. King and his brothers constructed a raft of
pine logs, which were hauled form the hills by the, now nearly worn-out oxen.
This raft was made large enough to sustain ten wagons and about ten persons.  It
was the month on December before they reached their destination, and
they suffered from the winter storms.
     The first winter was spent at Forest Grove, and the following summer the
family went up to a beautiful valley, where the father and brothers took up
claims and made comfortable homes for themselves and families, the valley having
since gone by the name of King's valley.  There the father lived and prospered
until his death, in 1881.  He was a man of intelligence and great activity,
thoroughly upright in all his dealings, and extremely kind-hearted.  These
qualities made him very popular with his neighbors and his death was universally
lamented.
     Mr. King, the subject of this notice, took up his donation claim a few
miles below Corvallis, on the Willamette river.  Afterward, perceiving that
there were prospects of a city being built at Portland, he sold his right, and
in the spring of 1849, came to Portland, where he purchased a squatter's right
to the fine property then on the west side of the town site.  This valuable
property was obtained for a nominal sum, and contained 500 acres, and the city
of Portland had just started.  Here Mr. King engaged in the tanning business,
which he followed successfully for eleven years, the city in the meantime
gradually growing, and his property steadily advancing in value.  In 1856 he
built his present fine residence, which was at that time the best house in the
city, the shingles still doing good service, which were put on thirty-five years
ago.
     When the city had extended to his property, he platted it and sold forty
acres of it to the city for a park, receiving the handsome price of $800 an
acre, and since then has been worth very much more.
     Of late years he has turned his attention to building, and has erected a
large number of housed.  Besides this he was one of the builders and
stockholders of the Multnomah Street railway, which was at first a horse-car
line, and is now an electric line, the cars of which glide swiftly through his
property, carrying hundreds of people to and from their elegant homes in that
beautiful part of the city.  Besides his city property, Mr. King owns several
thousand acres of choice agricultural lands in this State, some of which he is
utilizing in the breeding of horses and cattle.
     The transformation has, indeed, been great in the city and its surrounding
since the time when it first greeted the view of the now aged pioneer.  It was
then scarcely reclaimed from the rule of the aborigines.  Indeed, the lonely
forests and beautiful and wild streams were only disturbed by the note of some
forest bird, or the streams ruffled by the ripple of some Indian's canoe and the
dip of his paddle.  Now magnificent steamers plow those waters, bearing on their
decks hundreds of people, while noisy manufactories destroy the silence of the
otherwise peaceful surroundings.  A proud city, the metropolis of a magnificent
State, has grown up in the midst, great in commerce, education, science and
arts, second in size, perhaps, to a few older municipalities, but in substantial
growth and civilization proudly challenging the competition of the world.
     In 1846 Mr. King was married to Miss Malinda Fuller, an estimable lady, and
a native of Ohio.  They have had six children, four now living.  In 1887 the
family were called upon to part from the devoted wife and mother, who for
forty-one years had thought of nothing but their welfare.  She was a woman of
rare sensibility, and her life was the practical expression of the noblest
Christian virtues, to which she gave the added charm of a naturally loving
heart.
     The eldest son, N. A. King, is a wealthy rancher in Lake county, where he
owns 5,000 acres of choice land, on which he is raising horses.  One of the
daughters, now Mrs. Nautilla A. Jeffrey, resides in a handsome residence near
her father.  The other daughter is now Mrs. A. Lumsden, also a wealthy resident
of Portland.
     The younger son, Edward A. King, who lives with his father and assumes full
charge of their extensive real estate and financial affairs, was born in
Portland, March 30, 1861, and was reared and educated in his native city.  He
married Miss Anna Brewer, in 1880, a highly esteemed lady and a native of
Michigan.  They have two children, both born in the metropolis, William A. and
Lulu L.  Mr. Edward King has for several years been the efficient treasurer of
the Multnomah Street railway.  He is now clerk of the Board of Bridge
Commissioners, to which office he was appointed by the Circuit Court Judge.  He
is a good specimen of the young business men produced by this great State, which
grows nothing small nor insignificant.
     He belongs to the I.O.O.F. and also to the Knights of Pythias.  He and his
father are Democratic in politics.
     Thus is given the most important facts of the life of one of Oregon's most
eminent pioneers who unaided has acquired wealth and prominence, all of which
has been accomplished by the most honorable methods and with the full approval
of his fellow-men.

* * * 
Other mentions of Mr. King in other sources:


History of Oregon"
Author: Charles Henry Carey
Publisher: Pioneer Historical Pub. Co.
Chicago-Portland; 1922;  Page 780
 
     The bond between the east and the west side communities was cemented four years prior to their formal political consolidation by the construction of a bridge at Morrison Street which was opened on April 11, 1887, and was the forerunner of the number of imposing structures which now furnish adequate means of communication between these sections of the city.  The policy of reserving land for parks, which was instituted early in the city's history, took an interesting turn when the city in 1880 bought from Colonel A. N. King a tract at the head of Park Avenue, now called Washington Park and comprising with additions to the original site an area of 103 acres.  The foresight of the early fathers and the public spirit of its citizens have worked together to make the municipal park system a distinguishing feature of the city's growth.
 
 
 
 
"Portland, Oregon, Its History and Builders"
Author:  Joseph Gaston
Publisher:  S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.; Chicago; 1911; page 201
 
     The first item of improvement that so attracted the attention of the country as to have Portland talked about, was the starting of a tannery by Daniel H. Lownsdale.  This was the first tannery north of Mexico in all the country west of the Rocky mountains.  As a matter of fact, many of the farmers up in the valley had been tanning deer and calfskins in a limited way, as nearly all the pioneer people knew something of the art of tanning skins.  But the Lownsdale tannery was started as a business enterprise to accommodate the public and make profit to its proprietor.  Hides would be tanned for so much cash, of leather would be traded for hides; or leather would be sold for cash, furs or wheat.  Here was a start in a productive manufacturing business, and Lownsdale's tannery was the talk of the whole country, and advertised Portland quite as much as it did the tannery.  This tannery was not started on the townsite, but away back in the forest a mile from the river, on the spot now occupied by the "Multnomah field" of the Athletic Association.  After running the tannery for two years, Lownsdale sold it to two newcomers -- Ebson and Ballance -- who in turn sold it to A. N. King, who then took up the mile square of land adjoining Portland on the west, known as the King Donation Claim, and which has made fortunes for all his children by the sale of town lots.  Amos N. King was not much of a town lot speculator.  It was a long time before he could muster up courage enough to ask a big price for a little piece of ground.  He stuck to his tannery, and made honest leather for more than twenty years before he platted an addition to the city.


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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in June 2005 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.