BY FRANK WHALEN - CWRT Board Member
July 29, 2023
On a muggy day in mid-July 1861, while the Union and Confederate armies were preparing to confront each other at the battle of Bull Run, a funeral procession wended its way down the streets of Allentown to what was then Union Cemetery, later Union West End Cemetery. At that time, the then eight-year-old burial ground still bore some resemblance to the community cow pasture it had been for many years. But now it was to be graced by an elegant tomb/monument, decorated with all the Victorian Romantic embellishments that the era most admired in funerary art with a boundary around it. For this was to be the last resting place of Henry King (1790-1861) an attorney, politician, and arguably the most prominent man in Allentown and among the most prominent men in Pennsylvania.
King’s home, in the then fashionable Italianate villa style, was located on the north side of Hamilton Street next to the Lehigh County Courthouse. He lived there with his wife, Mary L. King. They had one child, Henry Lord King, who died in infancy. At King’s passing it became the home of John Dodson Stiles (1822-1896) also an attorney, Lehigh County District Attorney, and lawmaker who represented Lehigh County in Congress and was a delegate to three Democratic conventions: 1856, 1864 and 1868. The Colonial Theater was erected there in the 1920s and an office building occupies the site today. The home was a community showplace that attracted figures of importance in state and national politics. Democratic candidates for the White House such as James Buchanan in 1856 found a consultation with Henry King was not to be overlooked.
When the 25-year-old King rode into Allentown in 1815, perhaps with law books in his saddlebags, he already had a lot of family history behind him. His parents were Daniel King and Hannah Lord. The elder King fought in the American Revolution and was a participant in the Battle of (CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE)