Rufus King

                              Rufus King

1755 Rufus King (RK), born in Scarborough, Maine on March 24.

1773-1777 RK attends Harvard College. He graduated head of class with specific distinctions in mathematics, language and oratory. He was also noted for athletic abilities.

1778 Serves as a major in the patriot army at Newport, Rhode Island.

1780 RK begins to practice law in Massachusetts.

1781 RK becomes a justice of the peace.

1784-1787 RK serves as a Massachusetts delegate to the Confederation Congress.

1786 RK marries Mary Alsop on March 30.

1787 Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance, which includes a ban against slavery in the northwest territories. Rufus King, although not serving in Congress in 1787, had created the ban in 1785.

RK is a Massachusetts delegate to the Philadelphia Convention. As a member of the Committee on Style & Arrangement, Rufus King is one of the framers of the Constitution. He signs the newly created Constitution, which replaces the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution is ratified by all states by 1790.

1788 John Alsop King was born on January 3 in New York City.

1789 RK elected U.S. Senator for New York; he is re-elected in 1794 and serves until 1796.

1796 RK appointed minister to Great Britain by President Washington and later serves under Presidents Adams and Jefferson. King and his family return in 1803.

1804 RK loses bid for vice-presidency to George Clinton.
RK is a founding member of the New York Historical Society.

1805 RK purchases a residence in rural Jamaica, New York.

1806 RK elected trustee of Columbia College (now Columbia University).

1808 RK again loses bid for vice-presidency to George Clinton.

1813 RK re-elected U.S. Senator for New York. He is re-elected in 1818 and serves until 1824.

1815 RK elected Commissioner of Jamaica's Union Hall Academy, serves until 1819.

1816 RK, the last Federalist candidate, loses presidential election to James Monroe.

1818 Re-elected U.S. Senator for New York and serves until 1824.

1819 Mary Alsop King dies June 5th and is buried at Grace Episcopal Church in Jamaica, New York.

1820 RK delivers his famous speeches to U.S. Senate against the entry of Missouri to the Union as a slave state.

1825 RK appointed Minister to Great Britain by President John Quincy Adams, but returns to New York the next year due to poor health.

1827 Rufus King dies in Manhattan on April 29 at the age of 72 and is buried at Grace Church May 2.