(1768-1852) the first governor of Maine, was a wealthy business owner and politician. At one point, the wealthiest
ship owner in Maine, he was active in politics representing first Topsham then Bath in the Massachusetts legislature at various times between 1795 and 1819.
He was the leading force behind the movement for separation of Maine from Massachusetts heading the Democracy of Maine movement. In 1819 he was made president of the constitutional convention which drafted Maine's founding document. That convention nominated him for governor, an office he won with 21,083 votes of the 22,014 cast in the first such election in 1820.
Though governing in a nonpartisan manner, he was a Democratic-Republican, known as "Jeffersonians"
- a precursor of the current
Democratic Party.
King resigned his office in 1821 to take a federal position seeking, but failing to obtain, a higher federal office. In 1835 he ran again for governor as a
Whig; he was overwhelmingly defeated.
Earlier in his career, King,
known as the "Sultan of Bath," organized the first bank in that city,
and was a principal owner of the first cotton mill in Maine in 1809, located in Brunswick. An extensive owner of real estate, the town of Kingfield in Franklin County was one of his holdings.
Additional resources
Marion Jaques Smith. A History of Maine. From Wilderness to Statehood.
Portland: Falmouth Publishing House. 1949.
Marion Jaques Smith. General William King : Merchant, Shipbuilder, And
Maine's First Governor. Camden, Maine. Down East Books. c1980.