Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 445 of 894

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

369

RICHARD KING,
NUECES COUNTY.

Richard King was born in Orange County, N. Y.,
July 10, 1825, and at eight years of age was apprenticed
to a jeweler; but, being put to menial
work and unjustly treated, slipped aboard the ship
Desdemonia, bound for Mobile, Ala., and concealed
himself in the hold. When the vessel was
four days out, he was discovered and carried
before the captain,, who, although a stern and
weather-beaten old salt, treated him kindly, and
gave him a fatherly lecture, characterized by much
'sound and wholesome advice which the boy afterwards
profited by.
At Mobile he was employed as cabin boy by the
celebrated steamboatman, Capt. Hugh Monroe,
and later worked in the same capacity under Capt.
Joe Holland on the Alabama river. Capt. Holland
took quite a fancy to him and sent him to
school for eight months in Connecticut. Returning
to Mobile, he continued with Capt. Holland
until the commencement of the Seminole War,
and then enlisted in the service of the United
States, and participated in many of the stirring
events of that campaign. He was on the Ocochohee
when Col. Worth, afterwards a distinguished
officer in the Mexican War, enticed aboard and
captured Hospotochke and his entire band of
warriors, an event-that had much to do with bringing
hostilities to a speedy and successful close.
After the Seminole War, he steamboated on the
Chatahoochie river until 1847, and then went to
the Rio Grande, where he acted as pilot of the
steamer " Corvette," of the Quartermaster's Department
of the United States army, until the close
of the Mexican War.
The vessel was commanded by Capt. M. Kenedy,
whom he had previously met, and who remained
through all subsequent vicissitudes and changes
his life-long friend. Peace having been declared
between the .United States and Mexico, and the
armies disbanded, Capt. King bought the " Col.
Cross," and followed the river until 1850, when he
formed a copartnership with Capt. M. Kenedy,
Capt. James O'Donnell, and Charles Stilliman,
under the firm name of M. Kenedy