Declaration of Independence

Oh my! My brain just exploded.

William Henry King

Apparently, my great-great-grandfather William Henry King was stationed in Independence, Montgomery, Kansas with the Grand Army of the Republic in 1871 -- exactly when Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family were there in Little House on the Prairie. They were my very favorite books in the late 1960s and 1970s.

I can't help but wonder if "Pa" Charles Ingalls met or knew W.H. King. Laura mentioned the soldiers there.

Did W.H. King's first wife, Angeline Smith King help "Ma" Caroline Quiner Ingalls give birth to Caroline Celeste "Carrie" Ingall's on August 3, 1870?

Were the Ingalls family still there and did Mrs. Ingalls return the favor and help Mrs. King give birth to her second son, Franklin Forest King, on February 11, 1871?

Angeline King died February 13, 1874, and W.H. King married my gggrandmother, Mary Alice Hazelbaker, on July 21, 1874. (Their granddaughter, Alice Thelma Hamilton, married my grandfather, Fred Huls on February 6, 1928 -- the same year William Henry King died on August 26.)

Those two King boys weren't motherless for long!

-30-