Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography

Thousands of short American lives — soldiers, inventors, preachers, governors, novelists — each given a paragraph: born where, did what, and why anyone remembered.

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King, William Fletcher

third president of Cornell college, was born Dec. 20, 1830, near Zanesville, Ohio. In 1857 he graduated from the classical course of the Ohio Wesleyan university; and for five years was employed as a teacher in that institution. In 1862 he was elected to the chair of the Greek and Latin languages in Cornell college of Mount Vernon, Iowa, which position he held until the death of President Fellows in 1863. He then took charge of the college as acting president, and was formally elected president in 1865. He still holds that office, making him not only the senior college president of Iowa, but as far as known, the oldest in continued presidency in the same institution in Amertraveled extensively in America and Europe, and is a man of affairs as well as of scholarship. He was a member of the national commission of the World's Columbian exposition; has been three times elected to the general conference of the methodist episcopal church. He is a vigorous speaker and a graceful writer; and his published papers and addresses have been well received.

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