EB Adventist

131 Pages·2013·8.36 MB·English

by  Craig Lightfoot

ADVENTIST
:
The Autobiography Of Joseph Pyram
King
1848 — 1948
of
Wilmington, North Carolina
&
Jacksonville, Florida
Together With His
Heresy Or No Heresy?
being his
1880 Defense Against Heresy Charges,

Edited by
Wesley E. Bassett
Bluefish Books
Cowart Communications
Jacksonville, Florida
www.bluefishbooks.info
ADVENTIST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH
PYRAM KING Copyright © 2006 by John W. Cowart.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of
America by Lulu Press. Apart from reasonable fair
use practices, no part of this book’s text may be
used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission from the publisher
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews. For information address
Bluefish Books, 2805 Ernest St., Jacksonville,
Florida, 32205.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
has been applied for. Lulu Press # 235089
ISBN 978-1-4116-7980-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006922904
Lulu Press number: 235089
Photo Credits:
King family photos are courtesy of
Cheryl McClellan, Larry Walker, John P. King, & Wes
Bassett
Old Wilmington, N.C., photos
are from the website archives of the
Lower Cape Fear Historical Society
www.latimerhouse.org .
They carry no copyright notice.
Bluefish Books
Cowart Communications
Jacksonville, Florida
www.bluefishbooks.info
This publication is dedicated to my son
Trevor James Dennis,
The Next Link In The Chain
Stand up, Son,
and be the right kind of man!
— Pappy
And to my late granddaughter,
Sande Dawn Jordan, My little China Doll
— Paw Paw
Other Bluefish Books You May Enjoy
include:
Glog
A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad
The Lazarus Projects
I’m Confused About Prayer
Letters From Stacy
Crackers & Carpetbaggers
Strangers On The Earth
Gravedigger’s Christmas & Other Tales
Heroes All: A History of Firefighting In
Jacksonville
Rebel Yell: The Civil War Diary of J.T.
Whatley, CSA
John Cowart’s Daily blog can be found at
www.cowart.info/blog/
Bluefish Books
Cowart Communications
Jacksonville, Florida
www.bluefishbooks.info
Introduction
by
Wesley E. Bassett
J
oseph P. King, "Grandpa" to me, has been one of my principal
heroes and mentors. He died five years before I was born. I
only know him through my adopted grandmother, who was
one of his older granddaughters. For several years during
my adolescence, I spent at least hundreds of hours sitting at
my grandmother's kitchen table talking about Jesus Christ,
the Bible, and Grandpa. It was my grandmother's genuine
Christianity, the result of Grandpa's teaching and preaching
that convinced me that I needed to believe on Christ.
Grandpa was the defining influence on her and on most of
those in her generation of the family, the generation before,
and at least one generation after. He was also enormously
influential on his townsmen, parishioners, and patients. He
was also the defining influence on my adolescent
development, and, through all my life to this point, influences
me still. I found a reference to him in a local history of the
North Carolina Piedmont area, written in 1902. There he is
called, "The almost legendary Joseph P. King."
It amazes me that one man could affect so many people for
so long. And, almost sixty years after his death, he has
become a principal influence on my sixteen-year-old son,
Trevor.
This autobiography was dictated to Grandpa's daughter,
Theodosia Grant, in about 1926. My grandmother told me
that Grandpa was lying on the bed in his room taking his
customary afternoon rest, and he called Theodosia and told
her to bring some paper and something to write with.
Grandpa dictated this account during several of these
sessions, and Theodosia wrote it out in pencil in two school
composition books. These books were loaned to me in the
1970s and I typed them out in manuscript form. The text is
as nearly an exact representation of the manuscript as
possible. The grammar is mostly unedited. This is the way
Grandpa talked. I left it that way.
My thanks to John Cowart of Bluefish Books for his assistance
with this book.
I hope you, the reader, draw inspiration and courage from
the uncommon life of this common man.
—— Wesley Bassett
E-Mail: [email protected]
PHOTO SECTION:
J.P. & Eliza King’s 50th Anniversary Photo,
1916
1949 newspaper article