Richard King, a North Carolinian by birth and Nancy Daily a South Carolinian met and were married in Rutherford county, Tennessee, October 3rd, 1827. Later moved to Williamson county, Tennessee. Here on the 21st, of January 1831 their second child was born. They named him William Henry Horton. It is of this child I am writing. Soon the family moved to "Choctaw Purchase" in Mississippi, again they moved to Lafayette county, Tennessee. In the autumn of 1833 they started to Texas. On the way to Texas they were "Water Bound" in Arkansas, as Brother King says. In Hempstead county they purchased a tract of land and made it their permanent home. Here the boy William grew to manhood, attending the "old Field Schools" when there was a school, and when there was not he worked in the blacksmith shop with his father. In 1844-45 he attended the McKenzie Institute at Clarksville, Texas. After leaving McKenzie Institute he entered a Methodist School at Washington, Arkansas, and remained a student of it till 1849. The next year he taught a private school in Washington, and on April 10, 1850 he was united in marriage to Miss Nancy Jane Clark. Brother King enlisted in the Confederate army in 1861 and served until the close of the war. When he entered the war he made a vow unto the Lord that if he should survive the conflict he would surrender his life to God and take up his cross and obey his Master. Previous to this time he had felt the call to the ministry, but had eluded these calls and evaded the duties. The experience of that time, language fails to describe. Suffice to say they were very unhappy. By sad realization he learned that the "way of the transgressor is hard." For three years and ten months he was under fire, but came out unhurt.
He had embraced religion in May 1843 and two years later had united with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Sister King joined with him a few years later. September 1850 he placed himself under care of Mound Prairie Presbytery as a probationer for the ministry. Then followed the backsliding, the shirking of duty, the doubt, and the war. His companions during the war were immersionists and hearing their argument all the time and not being fortified against their fallacy by previous study, he was led to accept their teaching. So he became a Missionary Baptist, and was licensed to preach in 1868. Developing as his brethren expressed it "some gift in the way of argument," he was early pushed forward on important occasions to preach upon the distinctive tenets of the Baptist Church. This to him soon became irksome. He believed that laboring for the salvation of the lost and not polemic theological discussions was the work of a minister. Besides this there was a church dispute that helped to cause his estrangement from the Baptist denomination. In this confused condition he set about the careful study of the teaching of the leading denominations. This resulted in a clear cut decision in favor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He was received by Ouchita Presbytery in December 1877. When he came to Texas he became a member of the Greenville Presbytery. At times as his fields of labor changed he was a member of Bacon, San Jacinto and Marshall Presbyteries. When the proposed union with the Presbyterian Church. U.S.A. came up he remained Cumberland Presbyterian, and rejoices in the fact that our church has stood the storm. A majority of her membership are still loyal to the church of our fathers, and to the cause of religious liberty, and they are manifesting more spiritual vitality than has been manifested in our church in twenty-five years.
On the second day of April 1909 the Lord saw fit to remove his beloved companion from her labors of this life to the rest that remains for the people of God. Thus after a happy married life of over 59 years he is left a lonely way-farer in the world. He is now making his home with his daughter, Mrs. J. A. Calloway, of Durham, Texas.
The true minister of God is never satisfied to be idle. The Greenville Presbytery made Brother King Presbyterian missionary to Mineola and vicinity. He had gathered together a few Cumberlands and organized a mission about seven miles from Mineola and had secured an acre of land as a building site for a house of worship. Not only this but now at his extreme age he is preaching when able to the scattered Cumberlands in the "Wild West."
Brother King is a grand nephew of Rev. Samuel King, [is this correct - need proof] who with Rev. Sam McAdoo and Rev. Finis Ewing constituted the first Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
[Source: Our Senior Soldiers: The Biographies and Autobiographies of Eighty Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers. Compiled by The Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication. The Assistance of Revs. J. L. Price and W. P. Kloster is Greatfully Acknowledged. Nashville, Tenn.: The Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1915, pages 209-212]