Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Who's Who in Jefferson County, 1931 Dr. David Hendricks King

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Saturday, August 22, 1931
Front Page

Who's Who In Jefferson County
By Herbert F. McDougal

Dr. D. H. KING

Get Dr. D. H. King of Batavia to talking about horses, and he becomes at once a poet, his words flowing in musical cadences and his fingers making graceful little gestures in the air to illustrate the lightness and beauty of some long-remembered horse's paces.

And if a little bay mare, entered in an amateur race at the Jefferson county fair here, years ago, hadn't injured herself in her eagerness to win, he probably never would have become a doctor. But the mare ruptured cartilage in her shoulder, which didn't keep her from winning the race, but did end her days on the track. However, she was able afterwards to wear out a dozen other horses in teams with which he practiced medicine, over Abingdon way.

Dr. King doesn't quite remember how he happened to choose medicine as a profession, although as a boy he always was crushing chalk into powders and doing it up in little papers. That he ever got through old Keokuk Medical college is still a puzzle to him, for it was back in the days of the Cleveland administration--and those really were hard times he says. The King family, living north of Batavia, lived on cordwood for a long time. That is, all the ready money it had came from selling wood to the Burlington railroad, which then used a great deal as fuel. There was a regular wood-cutting camp on the King farm, and before the winter was over, it had delivered 1,200 cords at the Batavia yards, 3-foot wood at $3.25 a cord. Others did a good deal of business in wood, too, so that there must have been 5,000 cords in the yards there at one time, Dr. King thinks.

When it came to getting money to go to school, there was a great shyness on the part of the banks. One couldn't borrow $200 on a quarter-section of improved land. But Dr. Kings' grandfather finally loaned the lad the money, and he set out for school. He "bached" with two other students, and he still remembers the biscuits they made without milk. The biscuits could be eaten when hot, but nobody even tried to eat them when they cooled off.

Dr. King was born at Wolcott, White County, Ind., May 29, 1875. His father died when the Doctor was a mere boy, and the mother with her three children, came to Jefferson county, where her family had moved. He was about 11 years old then, and started into school at Batavia. His joy was horses, and he rode races and broke horses for the farmers as a part of his upbringing. Many a Sunday he worked all day breaking a colt, and got fifty cents for the work.

He was graduated from Keokuk Medical in 1898, but in the meantime, September 15, 1897, he had married Miss Bessie Henry, a great-great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry. They lived at first at Abingdon, where he set up in the vigorous practice of medicine. For nine years he practiced there, and then moved to Batavia. He is still in active practice over a wide territory.

The King home is lavishly furnished with Japanese carved furniture, sculpted friezes gay cretonne-upholstered chairs and settees, antiques in delightful array.

Six years ago Dr. King joined the American Inter-State Medical Clinic, which toured the principal hospitals and clinics of Europe and was feted by royalty and the governments of principal cities.

He is a Mason and a member of the Christian church.