Author: KING, Nathaniel
Biography:
KING, Nathaniel (1767-1848: ancestry.com)
Pseudonym Mark Drinkwater
The remarkable utopian political fantasy The United Worlds was the work—apparently the only published literary work—not of its supposed author “Mark Drinkwater” but of Nathaniel King, a prominent New York State lawyer and legislator. The son of Rebecca (Mead) and Samuel King, he was born on 26 Dec. 1767 at Amenia, Dutchess County NY. He was said to have been fond of literature from childhood, and to have composed poetry occasionally all his life, but to have been averse to publication, hence the pseudonym (King was a strict teetotaller). For reasons unknown, he registered his copyright in The United Worlds in 1831 but did not publish it until 1834. He graduated from Yale in 1792 and became a lawyer. In 1797 he settled in the new community of Hamilton NY, where for some time he served as a county judge. In 1798 he was elected to the state legislature. From 1807 to 1812 he acted as District Attorney for five counties. By 1802 he was a Colonel in the state militia, rising to the rank of Major-General and serving in the War of 1812. He married three times: Ottilia Meyer or Mayer (d 1816) in 1803; Mary Bates in Sept. 1816; and a widow, Elizabeth (Gregg) Tefft (d 1849), after the death of Mary King in 1817. From these three marriages he had seven surviving children. He died at Hamilton after a short illness on 25 July 1848. (ancestry.com 26 Aug. 2025; findmypast.com 26 Aug. 2025; Patriot [Utica NY] 26 Dec. 1803; Columbian [New York] 17 Nov. 1817; Washington Reporter [Washington PA] 27 Sept. 1848) HJ
Other Names:
- Mark Drinkwater