ORIGINS

On July 4, 1821, a young shoemaker named Thomas Farrington King gave a patriotic address to a group of his fellow workers in New York City, the combined “Tammany, Hibernian, Stone Cutters’, Tailors’, and Cordwainers Societies.” In ornate language he denounced ecclesiastical despotism and called out the glorious names of the Revolutionary heroes. This speech, as it happened, would change his life and make possible the career of his firstborn child, Thomas Starr King, who would go on to consort with men and women at the pinnacle of American cultural life first as a Universalist and then as a Unitarian clergyman.

The usual pattern for the New York tradesmen when inviting an orator for an important occasion was to turn to a clergyman or local politician. But the elder King had gained a reputation for eloquence, and hence he became the choice of his fellow workers. Making full use of this unusual opportunity, he displayed his learning with references to the poet Cowper and the British statesman Chatham, among others. The speech so impressed the tradesmen that they convinced him to put down the tools of his craft to go into the ministry.