Elisha James King (1821-1844) was, with B. F. White, the compiler of The Sacred Harp, a shape note hymnbook that came to be used widely in the rural South.
[1] It is clear that King was the junior member of the partnership with White (born 1800), who had already had an extensive career as a shape note composer and teacher.
The early 20th century Sacred Harp editor Joseph Summerlin James suggested that King was in fact White's pupil.
Yet King's musical contribution to the volume was substantial; in the present-day 1991 edition of the Sacred Harp, his name appears on 22 of the tunes as composer, arranger, or co-arranger.
[1] Steel conjectures that King may also have provided the initial financing that would have been needed to persuade the printer (in Philadelphia) to take on the job of producing the book.