[1] He was one of eleven children born to Sarah Rogers (née Gracie) King and James G.
[6] His maternal grandfather was Archibald Gracie, a Scottish-born shipping magnate and early American businessman and merchant in New York City and Virginia.
[7] King was educated in America and at the school of Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg at Hofwyl near Bern, Switzerland, before attending Harvard College, from where he graduated in 1840, thirty years after his father.
Together, they were the parents of:[9] King died on March 21, 1897, of bronchitis after a lingering illness at "Highwood," his country estate near Weehawken, New Jersey.
[25] Through his son Frederick, he was a grandfather of women's rights entrepreneur Alice Gore King.