James Ferguson Blaikie King

Newcomers
James Ferguson Blaikie King

James King and Helen Gibson King, holding grandchild James III.

Ship manifest listing passengers on the S.S. Canadian, arriving in Quebec on August 29, 1878.

Ship manifest listing passengers on the S.S. Canadian, arriving in Quebec on August 29, 1878.

James Ferguson Blakie King was born in 1858 in Old Deer, Scotland. He was a Findlay on his mother’s side. At the age of 20 he accompanied a shipment of Anderson-Findlay Angus cattle to Lake Forest.King was one of three young men (Alex Robertson and Alex Kelley the other two) who would make the long journey from Scotland to Lake Forest with the cattle – typically five cows and one bull per shipment. These deliveries became the very first registered herd of Angus cattle in the U.S. Once in Lake Forest, they were kept in a cattle yard where CVS sits today and later on property where the Lake Forest Hospital sits. The trip typically took seven weeks: Scotland to Quebec by boat, sailing through the Erie Canal and around Lake Michigan to Chicago, and finally up to Lake Forest by train.James King decided to remain in town. He and his wife Ellen raised eight children, never living far from other Scottish families on Oak, Scott and finally Summit Avenue. He served on the first fire brigade and in 1897 became Lake Forest City Clerk, a job he held for the next 35 years.