Mortimer King (b. circa 1830 - d. 1911)
MSA SC 5496-050584
Enlisted with Company K, 30th Regiment, USCT, in Montgomery County,
Maryland, 1864
Biography:
Mortimer King was born around 1830 to William King and an unknown slave woman. In December of 1834, Montgomery County slaveholder Samuel Riggs inherited the four-year-old King.1 Riggs usually appeared in records as "Samuel Riggs of R," identifying him as the son of Reuben Riggs and differentiating him from other relatives with the same name. In 1864, King was one of thirteen slaves on Riggs' farm,2 along with Albert King (b. 1823), Hanson King (b. 1841), and Rachel King (b. 1838). The farm, which Samuel Riggs' had inherited from his father, stood in the Cracklin District of Montgomery County just north of Laytonsville. A number of Kings were also enslaved on the nearby farms of Thomas Griffith and Samuel O. Dorsey.3
On March 28, 1864, Mortimer King enlisted as a private with Company K of the 30th Regiment, USCT, Maryland Volunteer Infantry.4 Another of Riggs' slaves, Luke Letcher, enlisted with the 39th USCT around the same time. Mortimer King's service record describes him as 5' 7" tall with a "griff" complexion, a term loosely signifying both African and European ancestry.5 According to his service record, King was promoted to the rank of corporal on March 31, 1864, just three days after enlisting.
Shortly after enlisting, King paid fifty cents for a pair of shoulder scales commonly worn by privates and corporals in "full dress."6 In June of 1865, he paid $5.03 for a "Stop for Transportation," which referred to a furlough that he took from May 21 to June 20, 1865. Then, in August, he paid thirty-one cents for a gun sling. During his entire service, King paid a total of $37.53 for clothing and $6.00 for ammunition.
Mortimer King was mustered out on December 10, 1865, in Roanoke Island.
He returned to the Cracklin District of Montgomery County, where he lived
near Brighton. King and his wife Amelia (b. circa 1840) had one daughter,
Margaret, born around 1856. On March 30, 1870, King purchased half
an acre of land from Jeremiah Johnson,7 mortgaging the land
with Washington Bowie on the same day.8 He also owned $100 in
personal property by June of that year.9
By 1880, Mortimer and
Amelia King had moved to Washington D.C. where Mortimer worked as a messenger
for the Government Printing Office. The Kings resided at 53 Eighth Street
NW,10 while their daughter Maggie Clements lived a few doors away with her
husband William and their four children.11
In 1880, the census showed a boarder named Martin Spriddle living with the Kings. The pastor of Asbury Mission in 1881,12 Spriddle had formerly served as reverend of the Dallas Street (Centennial) Methodist Episcopal Church, which in 1876 the Baltimore Sun called the oldest church in Baltimore.13 Interestingly, in 1887, the Sun listed Mortimer King on the board of managers for the "Union camp-meeting of churches in the Baltimore and Washington districts of the Washington Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church."14
Around 1890, King married his second wife, Mary Parker (b.
1850).15 They moved from Washington D.C. to Baltimore City by
1900, where they rented a residence at 1017 Carlton Street.16
The 1910 census listed King as a Union Army veteran of the Civil War.17
He passed away on April 2, 1911 in Baltimore, and was buried at Loudon
Park National Cemetery.18 His headstone, number 1452 in section
C, reads "Corpl. Mortimer King, U.S.C.T."19 In 1998, the African
American Civil War Memorial in Washington D.C. commemorated Mortimer King
along with the 209,145 soldiers listed on its Wall of Honor. King's name
appears on plaque B-46.20
1. U.S. Colored Troops
Military Service Records, 1861-1865, Mortimer King, 30th United States
Colored Infantry. Page 87 electronic. The Generations Network, Inc., 2007.
www.ancestry.com.
MONTGOMERY
COUNTY, REGISTER OF WILLS, (Wills, Original), [MSA C1142-12]. Reuben Riggs,
June 9, 1829, Box 9, Folder 26.
2. U.S. Census Bureau (Census
Record, MD) for Samuel Riggs of R, Slaves, 1860, Montgomery County, District
1, Page 13, Line 1 [MSA SM61-239, M 7230-2].
MONTGOMERY
COUNTY COMMISSIONER OF SLAVE STATISTICS (Slave Statistics), [MSA CM750-1].
Samuel Riggs of R, Page 148 (Page 128 electronic).
Montgomery
County District 1, Simon J. Martenet, Martenet and Bond's Map of Montgomery
County, 1865, Library of Congress, [MSA SC 1213-1-464], Huntingfield Map
Collection.
3. MONTGOMERY COUNTY COMMISSIONER
OF SLAVE STATISTICS (Slave Statistics), [MSA CM750-1]. Thomas Griffith,
Page 1 (Page 1 electronic).
MONTGOMERY
COUNTY COMMISSIONER OF SLAVE STATISTICS (Slave Statistics), [MSA CM750-1].
Samuel Riggs of R, Page 148 (Page 128 electronic).
4. U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1861-1865, Mortimer King, 30th United States Colored Infantry. The Generations Network, Inc., 2007. www.ancestry.com.
5. Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume 2. (Frederic G. Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall, eds. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991) 811.
6. Ron Field and Robin Smith. Uniforms of the Civil War: An Illustrated Guide for Historians, Collectors, and Reenactors (Guileford, CT: Lyons Press, 2001) 100.
7. MONTGOMERY COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records), Liber EBP 7, Folio 312, 1869-1870, [MSA CE 63-17]. Mortimer King to Washington Bowie, March 30, 1870.
8. MONTGOMERY COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records), Liber EBP 7, Folio 320, 1869-1870, [MSA CE 63-17]. Jeremiah Johnson to Mortimer King, March 30, 1870.
9. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Mortimer King, 1870, Montgomery County, District 1, Page 19, Line 7 [MSA SM61-275, M 7256].
10. Boyd's Directory of The District of Columbia 1881, Record for Mortimer King, Page 474 (Page 207 electronic). Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. www.ancestry.com.
11. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record,
MD) for Mortimer King, 1870, Montgomery County, District 1, Page 19, Line
7 [MSA SM61-275, M 7256].
MONTGOMERY
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, (Marriage Licenses), [MSA T2490-1]. William Clements
and Maggie King, October 26, 1871.
12. 1880 U.S. Federal Census Record (DC) for Mortimer King, 1880, District of Columbia, Washington, Disrict 3, Page 12, Line 22. Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.
13. "The Oldest Church in Baltimore." Baltimore Sun 25 October 1876: 1876. Baltimore Sun Historical Archive. Enoch Pratt Free Library.
14. "Religious Camp-Meetings." Baltimore Sun 12 August 1887: 4. Baltimore Sun Historical Archive. Enoch Pratt Free Library.
15. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Mary King, 1920, Baltimore City, Ward 18, District 313, Page 14, Line 76 [MSA SM61-477, M 10113].
16. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Mortimer King, 1900, Baltimore City, Ward 18, District 240, Page 27. Line 12 [MSA SM61-391, M 2376].
17. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Mortimer King, 1910, Baltimore City, Ward 16, District 277, Page 27, Line 51 [MSA SM61-434, M 3261].
18. BALTIMORE CITY, HEALTH DEPARTMENT BUREAU OF VITAL STATISTICS, (Death Record), Film Reel: CR 48152, [MSA CM1132-109]. Mortimer King, April 2, 1911, Baltimore City.
19. "Mortimer King." U.S. Veterans
Gravesites, ca.1775-2006. Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. www.ancestry.com.
"Mortimer
King." Nationwide Gravesite Locator. United States Department of Veteran
Affairs. http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1.
20. "Albert Snowden" Civil War Soldiers
and Sailors System. National Park Service. http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm.
"The
African American Civil War Memorial." African American Civil War Memorial
Freedom Foundation and Museum. http://www.afroamcivilwar.org/.
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