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Includes: Scrapbook with numerous newsclippings, illustrations, & columns glued in, & 2 partial pictorial lettersheets, all relating to the murder of James, King of William & the second San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856. 36 leaves, green paper, with items glued on both sides. On the front board is mounted the engraved card of Mrs. Clancy Ritchie McKee, on which is written “Scrap Book of Charles James King, son of James King of William,” and “Daughter of Chas. James King.” 13¾x11, half leather & marbled boards. * Notebook containing 70 leaves, typed (carbon) on rectos only, being a genealogy and family history of the antecedents and descendents of James, King of William, and various branches of the family. On the front cover is the label, “King Genealogy.” Various newspaper clippings laid in. 10¾x8¼, half cloth & boards. * Several letters to Mrs. A.J. [Lillian] Waterhouse about genealogical matters and her relationship to James King of William. * 1897 photograph of Dorothy Jean Waterhouse, age 7 months, apparently a descendent of sorts of James King of William, and through whose family the present archive has come.

Significant gathering of original newspaper accounts of the tumultuous days of 1856, when the assassination of crusading journalist James King of William spurred the decent citizens of San Francisco to take matters into their own hands, hanging the corrupt supervisor and triggerman James P. Casey, and the murderer Charles Cora. James King of William, a banker by trade, had founded the San Francisco Bulletin the preceding year, using its pages to campaign against the evils and corruption of local government. Revealed here, in the columns from the Bulletin, the Daily Alta California, the Morning Globe, are the shooting and death of James King of William, the capture and lynching of his assassin by the newly formed Committee, the stabbing of Officer Hopkins by Judge Terry, the pursuit of Ned McGowan, and many other crucial events. There are a number of illustrations present as well, mostly newspaper engravings, but also two pictorial lettersheets, clipped, including Execution of James P. Casey & Charles Cora… (Baird 70, a woodcut), and Execution of Hetherington and Brace… (Baird 69, a lithograph). The accompanying genealogy is also quite interesting, tracing the family of James King of William from their departure from Ireland in the 18th century (with transcripts of letters from that era), the many branches of the family, marriages, offspring, deaths, etc.