Finding Aid to the William King Letters

JONES MEMORIAL LIBRARY
2311 MEMORIAL AVENUE
LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA 24501
(434) 846-0501
THE WILLIAM KING (ca.1824-1885) LETTERS
This microfilmed collection includes letters from William KING to his wife, Anne
Kasaiah (LEFTWICH) KING, 1861-1865. Many of the letters are signed "Choctaw," a
pseudonym used by KING in writing to his wife. The original letters are in the
manuscript collection of Alderman Library, University of Virginia.
WILLIAM KING (ca.1824-1885)
William KING, the son of William KING and Sarah BEEKEM, was born in
Abingdon, Washington County, Virginia, ca. 1824. He served in the Virginia House of
Delegates, from Washington County, for the sessions of 1852 and 1853. He later moved
to Lynchburg, where, on 18 November 1857, he married Ann Kasiah LEFTWICH,
daughter of Augustine LEFTWICH and Ann Elizabeth Williams CLARK. On 23 April
1861, he enlisted as a Third Lieutenant of Latham's Battery. On 21 June 1861, he was
detailed from the battery to supervise a naval detachment in the mounting of twenty-four
32-pounder guns on batteries near Manassas, Virginia. Later appointed Captain of the
battery, he was relieved from duty to report to the Secretary of War on 27 April 1862.
Following the Civil War, he returned to Lynchburg where he engaged in a commission
business and was later the teller of the People's National Bank. In 1884, he entered into a
leaf tobacco business. William KING died 20 May 1885.
[R. A. Brock, Virginia and Virginians, Vol. II (Richmond: H. H. Hardesty, 1888), p. 572; Robert H. Moore
II, The Richmond Fayette, Hampden, Thomas, and Blount's Lynchburg Artillery (Lynchburg: H. E.
Howard, 1991), pp. 47, 158; Lynchburg Virginian Tri-weekly, 20 November 1857, p. 3 col. 1; Walter Lee
Hopkins, Leftwich-Turner Families of Virginia and Their Connections (Richmond: J. W. Fergusson, 1931),
pp. 79-80; Lynchburg Virginian, 21 May 1885, p. 1 col. 2.]

MS1947