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One of the most successful drygoods
men in Rhode Island is Peter King,
now
President of the Boston Store, Newport, and also of the
Joliet Dry Goods Company, Joliet, Ill.
He is a native of Kilsyth, Scotland,
born June 5, 1852. He began business in Glasgow at the age of thirteen,
receiving his early training with the dry-goods firms of William Simpson &
Company and James Daly & Company.
Mr. King came to America in 1871 and
worked for five years with the dry-goods house of Callender, McAuslan &
Troup, Providence. In 1877, with his fellow Scotsman and clerk, Angus
MacLeod, on a capital of less than one thousand dollars, he started the
Boston Store, Newport, which has been eminently successful and has the
respect and confidence of the entire community.
Mr. King is President of the Aquidneck National Bank, a
director in the Newport Trust Company and the Industrial Trust Company,
Newport branch, and trustee of the Newport Savings Bank and Newport
Hospital. He is a member of the St. Andrew ‘s Society and prominent in
Masonic circles. He is a director of the Y. M.
C. A., and Chairman of the Army and Navy
branch of that work; also Senior Warden and Treasurer of St. George’s
Episcopal Church.
He married Martha, daughter of
William Murdock, of Providence. They have nine children: James Murdock,
manager of the Joliet store, Hamilton Theodore, a graduate of Harvard
Medical School and the University of Berlin, a practising physician in
Joliet, Annie Marion, Eliza Janet, Margaret Josephine, Martha Victoria,
Roberta Gilchrist, Lynnette and Peter, Jr. The joy of having such a
numerous and congenial family in the home together surpasses any worldly
prosperity.
Mr. King’s career is characterized
by energy, perseverance, honesty and business foresight. He is proud of
being a born Scotsman. |
