John King

   Find a Grave ID: 146309360.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Miscellaneous. John King married Eliza Jane Smail near Jamestown, Pennsylvania on May 11, 1847. At the time of their marriage, they were both 20 years of age. They made their home near Platteville, Wisconsin. There son was born John Icilius King, was born in Platteville, Wisconsin on November 13, 1848.

Five months after his son was born, in April of 1849, John King left his wife and son behind and started overland to the site of the California Gold Rush. A short time after arriving at gold mining camp of Negro Bar, on the American River, California, John King died in a mining accident on January 1, 1850.

Negro Bar was one of the earliest recorded locations of African-American gold miners. Its location was on a large sand bar located on the south bank of the lower American River. Soon after gold was discovered there, the camp, and the area surrounding it grew into a diverse multicultural area. The mining camp was nothing more than a cluster of tents and shacks to shelter the men working alongside the river.

Today the site of where the Negro Bar mining camp was, now lies under Lake Natoma. And the city that sprang up near the mining camp was renamed Folsom.

John married Eliza Jane Smail, daughter of Samuel Smail and Hannah Luce Smail. (Eliza Jane Smail was buried in Auburn, WA.)