Talk:Horace King (architect)

External Link?
Hello, there is an article here, http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1245, that might be useful as additional information or perhaps an external link. Thanks, Justin --Duboiju (talk) 16:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Columbus Georgia Bridge aka Dillingham
To User:Lissoy

You are aware of the photograph in the "final years" section, and then the text under the photo which says "King's third rebuilding of the Columbus City Bridge in 1865, six months after his previous bridge at this location was burned by Union troops. View of entrance on the Alabama side." Is this not Columbus Georgia that both the photo and descriptive text are referring too?

I'll leave your edits as you have rendered them. I found the source you referred to RE the Mississippi Bridges. Is there a clearer history-timeline of the Columbus-Dillingham bridges and its re-buildings ??

Thanx-A-Lot Fgf2007 (talk) 04:55, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Horace King (architect). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080916234636/http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/gahistmarkers/horacekinghistmarker.htm to http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/gahistmarkers/horacekinghistmarker.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 18:17, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

More context, less effusive praise?
The article introduction is universally positive, almost worshipful of Horace King - "Ultimately, dignity, respect and freedom were his rewards, as he transcended the color lines inherent in the Old South of the nineteenth century."

However it is also noted that King was a owner of enslaved persons who whipped at least one enslaved person. These actions may indeed have transcended the color lines inherent in the Old South. Are dignity, respect and freedom in fact just rewards, or can more context be given?

Did Horace King own J. Sella Martin?
I note the source of Horace King owning J. Sella Martin is a conclusion that the Horace King mentioned once   as a free colored owner of Martin is the same as the Horace King of this entry. Note the book author, Baptist Wriothesley Noel, is not a trained historian nor does he make any clear statement equating the two. The points of similarity seem to be free and colored and name. A dissimilarity seems to be that one, the owner, was in Columbus, Georgia and the other in Alabama though did some work in Georgia including Columbus. I think the conclusion that the two are the same needs to be made by a proper historian not a wikipedia editor before it should be included. As an alternative a better source such as one from J. Sella Martin having more details about whether the two are the same (e.g., a comment upon learning that Horace King had been elected to the Alabama House of Representatives or something about the King who owned him building bridges). There should be some source that Noel used to get the details about Martin's life --Erp (talk) 23:54, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Removed text from article as per my reasons above. --Erp (talk) 10:51, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The citation provided for Horace King being the purchaser of J. Sella Martin is a valid one. The author (Wriothesley) does not need to be a trained historian, he is speaking of an event that happened within a few years of its occurrence. King lived in Russell County, Alabama, which lies directly across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, Georgia where many people live on one side of the river and work on the other. The purchaser of Martin had to meet several specific conditions. They had to be male, Colored, named Horace King, free and wealthy enough to be the highest bidder. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Russell County, Alabama had 19 free Colored males in 1850 and only 12 in 1860. The likelihood of finding two Horace Kings that meet all the stated requirements in that small population appears extremely remote. Text restored per the reasons provided.    Kleinmacherkid (talk) 12:32, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Wriothesley Noel does not make a clear statement equating the two. We need a cite of a historian (could be amateur or professional) has done the census search (not a wikipedia editor) and evaluated the other evidence to draw and published the conclusion.  Without a published source drawing that conclusion we definitely have a case of WP:synthesis of someone putting the census data together with the statement by Noel to draw a conclusion not in any of the sources.   It is certainly possible that they are the same, but, it needs to be published authoritatively first elsewhere before going into wikipedia.  --Erp (talk) 03:28, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * First, Wriothesley could not possibly equate the slave purchaser to the Alabama legislator as he published his book in 1863, five years before King was elected, as stated in the "King and Reconstruction" paragraph. That said, Dave Gillarm, executive director of the Columbus Black History Museum states the Horace King "owned at least one slave, a man by the name of John Sella Martin." in the Ledger-Enquirer newspaper of Columbus, Georgia on February 23, 2016 (page 4).  Kleinmacherkid (talk) 13:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Lamont D. Thomas is a Pulitzer-Prize nominated published historian. He was also a university history professor. In The Journal of Southern History, 1987/11 Vol. 53; Iss. 4, a scholarly peer-reviewed academic journal, Thomas writes: "North Carolina slave John Sella Martin (1832-76) who was sold several times (once to free mulatto bridge builder Horace King of Alabama) before escaping..." It is highly in violation of Wiki standards for a wiki editor to dismiss, disregard, or attempt to erase such a scholarly reputable secondary source to advance a personal slant. Additionally, Dave Gillarm, cited above, the African-American executive director of the Black History Archives of Columbus, Georgia, is one of the most accomplished living researchers of the life of Horace King. If needed, I have little doubt that Mr. Gillarm would chime in corroborating the published scholarship of Professor Thomas. The fact of Horace King's purchase of John Sella Martin is in no way under question by those who have studied him carefully. Hilltoppers (talk) 07:53, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm glad we now have a reliable source. --Erp (talk) 13:23, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll take that back. The source cited (Lamont D. Thomas, "Rise to be a People: A Biography of Paul Cuffe," The Journal of Southern History (1987/11 Vol. 53; Iss. 4).) makes no mention of Horace King but is in fact a review by Darold Wax of a book by Lamont Thomas on a figure much earlier in time.  The mention of Horace King is in a different review of a book by R. J. M. Blackett of Vanderbilt University.  Ideally we should take the reference directly from the book rather than the review of the book:   I've corrected the reference in the article.   --Erp (talk) 13:53, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Architect and Engineer ...
This story cites King as "an architect and engineer" yet it does not reference any college or university? 24.214.10.243 (talk) 13:05, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Oberlin connection?
"Scholars believe that Godwin sent King in the mid-1830s for study at Oberlin College in Ohio, the first college in the United States to admit African-American students."

Considering that Oberlin began admitting African American students in 1935, that its faculty and students were dedicated and active proponents of immediate emancipation, and that it was at this point a theological school for the training of missionaries and thus did not have a program appropriate to the training of an architect, this seems highly unlikely. 132.162.173.223 (talk) 14:22, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Agreed and removed Erp (talk) 02:41, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I also note that Lupold and French 2004, investigated the claim and found it severely wanting. --Erp (talk) 04:03, 24 February 2024 (UTC)