Rufus King (lawyer)

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Rufus King (May 30, 1817 – March 25, 1891) was an American lawyer and longtime civic leader in Cincinnati. He served as the 5th president of the University of Cincinnati from 1860 to 1869 and as dean of the Cincinnati Law School. He also helped shape Ohio’s constitution and wrote a history of the state.

Born in Chillicothe, Ohio, King was the son of Edward King and Sarah Ann Worthington. His grandfathers were Rufus King, a U.S. senator and ambassador, and Thomas Worthington, a U.S. senator and Ohio governor. He began his studies at Kenyon College, then finished at Harvard, where he studied law with Joseph Story. He moved to Cincinnati in 1841 and was admitted to the bar.

King devoted much of his life to education and libraries. In 1853, after Woodward High School and Hughes High School merged, he became president of the board that ran the joint school, a position he held for the rest of his life. He also served on Cincinnati’s board of education from 1851 to 1866, serving as its president for 11 years. In 1853 he urged the consolidation of public school libraries, helping create Cincinnati’s central library. He later served on the library’s board of directors and was its president from 1870 to 1873. In 1869, a controversy over a ban on religious instruction in public schools led to the Bible Case; the court upheld the ban, a decision King opposed but which proceeded.

During the Civil War, Governor William Dennison, Jr. appointed King to meet with leaders from Louisville to discuss shipping to Kentucky. King also contributed to Cincinnati’s civic life by participating in the 1846 city charter conventions and by serving a term on the city council in 1848.

At the state level, King was elected to Ohio’s constitutional convention in 1872 to draft a new constitution and became its president after Morrison Waite left to join the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also involved in the creation of the Board of Tax Commissioners in 1883, serving as vice-president until the board ended in 1891.

In education and law, King was a director of McMicken University in 1859, and when the school became the University of Cincinnati in 1870, he continued as president of its board until 1877. His father helped found the Cincinnati Law School, and Rufus King taught there, becoming Dean of the Faculty from 1875 to 1880 and continuing to teach constitutional and property law afterward. He also led the Cincinnati Bar Association for many years and was a prominent figure in the Ohio State Bar Association.

King helped found the Cincinnati Law Library Association in 1847 and led its board for 36 years. He also served as a director and briefly president of the Cincinnati Southern Railway and the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad.

In 1888, King published Ohio, First Fruits of the Ordinance of 1787. He married Margaret Rives in 1843; they had no children. An Episcopalian, he was a long-time vestryman at St. Paul Cathedral and a trustee of Kenyon College. He died in Cincinnati in 1891 and was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery.