Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Pendleton King Papers #401, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Robert Ruffin King of Greensboro, N.C., in the 1920s and from Patsy White Cotten of Chapel Hill, N.C. in February 1995 (Acc. 95021).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Brooke Allan, 1964, Roslyn Holdzkom, March 1995

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Books and reading--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Booksellers and bookselling--Europe--History.
• Diplomatic and consular service, American--Germany.
• Europe--Description and travel.
• Guilford County (N.C.)--Commerce--History--19th century.
• King, John, fl. 1860-1880.
• King, Pendleton.
• King, Robert Ruffin, 1851-1946.
• Linville, W. F. (William Franklin), 1828-1915.
• Merchants--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• North Carolina--Commerce--History--19th century.
• United States--Diplomatic and consular service--Germany.

Pendleton King, educator, scholar, and diplomat, was born at Kings Crossroads near Stokesdale in Guilford County, N.C., to John and Lydia Ann Bowman King. King attended Oak Ridge Academy and New Garden Boarding School (now Guilford College) before entering Haverford College from which he was graduated in 1869. He taught at both Oak Ridge and New Garden, serving as principal teacher in the Boys School of the latter institution, 1870-1871. King returned to Haverford for the A.M. degree in 1872 and then joined the faculty of Louisiana University, Baton Rouge, where he taught English and natural history for three years.

After a year in Philadelphia, King spent three years in Europe, traveling and studying at the University of Berlin and in Paris. While abroad, he married Helen Ninde of Fort Wayne, Ind. The couple had two children, Helen and Rush Ninde.

Upon returning to the United States, King was active in the Democratic Party. In 1884, G. P. Putnam and Sons published his Life and Public Service of Grover Cleveland, a campaign biography that so impressed the Cleveland that he appointed King first secretary in the American Legation at Constantinople. He served in Turkey from March 1886 to June 1890. On several occasions, he was active in protecting the rights of American Jews in Palestine.

In June 1894, King was appointed chief of the Bureau of Indexes and Archives of the Department of State, a post he held until December 1905, when he was commissioned as consul at Aix la Chapelle, Germany. He served in that position until his death at Giessen, Germany, of heart failure following surgery for gallstones. He was buried at Fort Wayne.

King was a bibliophile and his collection of 7,000 books, which he willed to the Greensboro Carnegie Library, was acquired by the library of the University of North Carolina in 1921-1922.

[Based on note in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, volume 3, 1988.]

Correspondence between King and his brother, Robert Ruffin King, a Greensboro, N.C., lawyer, concerning investments and family news; letters from European bookdealers; personal bills and receipts from European travel, 1906-1913; essays on various topics; memorandum books, 1894-1904; thirteen notebooks of reading lists in various fields; an account book, 1860-1880, of W. F. Linville and John King, merchants of Guilford County, N.C.; and other items.