EDWARD W. KING, M.D. 

Edward W. King, M.D.  A pioneer of California, one of the able physicians and surgeons of his time.  Doctor King was well known throughout the San Francisco Bay district.

He was born in Genesee County, New York, July 15, 1831. When he was five years of age his parents, Lyman and Phoebe (Williams) King, moved West, and he was educated at a district school and began the study of medicine with his brother, Dr. Alman A. King, and also attended medical lectures at Davenport, Iowa. Soon after gold was discovered in California he came to the coast to reap a fortune

That would enable him to complete his medical education. He crossed the plains and arrived at Placerville July 15, 1850. He put up a log cabin and began working his claims, and the first gold he took out he sent to San Francisco and had it changed for a set of medical books, which he studied at night after the day’s tool as a miner. In 1862 he removed to San Francisco. In 1863 he graduated from the Cooper Medical College, and then began practice in Sierra County, where he remained five years, and during that time also served a superintendent of schools. When the Mendocino Insane Asylum was established in 1889 he was appointed it first superintendent by Governor Watterman.

Doctor King married in 1860 Caroline R. Lincoln, a native of New York. They had three children, one of whom died in infancy. The daughter Ella became the wife of Dr. David A. Hodghead of San Francisco, and the son was Arthur W. King, who died in November 1923.

 

Transcribed by Louise Shoemaker.