Edward King

Edward King (July 30, 1833 – November 18, 1908) was an American banker who served as president of the New York Stock Exchange and president of the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York. Early life King was born on February 5, 1839, at "Highwood," his father's country estate near Weehawken, New Jersey. He was the tenth of eleven children born to Sarah Rogers (née Gracie) King and James G. King. Among his siblings was banker Archibald Gracie King. At the time of his birth, his father was serving as President of New York and Erie Railroad and later became a U.S. Representative from New Jersey. His paternal grandparents were Mary (née Alsop) King, a daughter of John Alsop (a prominent merchant and Continental Congressman) and Rufus King, the first U.S. Senator from New York and the 3rd and 8th U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom (under Presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams). His maternal grandfather was Archibald Gracie, a Scottish-born shipping magnate and early American businessman and merchant in New York City and Virginia. King was educated at Columbia Grammar School, later attending a French school in New York run by Peugnet (a former officer under Napoleon). He later went to Europe and studied at a school in Meiningen in the Province of Saxony. He returned to the United States in 1849 and attended Harvard University, graduating in 1853.