Mack Herron King Biography
When Mack Herron King was born in July of 1891, the King family had been farming in Mecklenburg County NC for over a century. He was the seventh child of Alfonso William King and Margaret Elizabeth Herron, with four older sisters and two older brothers. His mother died when he was 12 years old, by which time he had two more sisters and two more brothers. After four years, his father remarried; Mack was age sixteen. (He was 20 years old at his father's third marriage, and 30 at his fourth.) The family lived in Long Creek Township, north of present day Charlotte.
Between 1900 and 1910, Mack's oldest sister, Grace, married John W. Hipp. The Hipp farm was off McKee Rd., in Steele Creek Twp. NC, on the backwaters of the Catawba River and near the border of York County SC. John Hipp died leaving Grace with two small children, and Mack's father, Alfonso King, sent Mack down to help Grace run her farm. Grace's son Willie Hipp, at three or four years old, would follow Mack around as he plowed fields with the mule, and formed a life-long attachment to his uncle.
While working for his sister Grace, Mack King met his future wife, Nancy Grace Thomas, called "Nanny". While the Hipp farm lay just inside North Carolina on the backwaters of the Catawba River, the Thomas family farm was just "across the gully" and behind the Hipp farm, but in South Carolina. Mack King and Nanny Thomas were married in December of 1915. The newlyweds continued to reside with Mack's sister Grace and work the old Hipp farm. In 1916 Grace King Hipp remarried to William H. Windle and moved to his house, but Mack and Nanny remained for a time on the farm.
The family of Moody Thomas, early in their marriage, were also given lodging in a tenement house on the Hipp farm. Moody's young daughter Gladys would see her grandmother Thomas' carriage arrive when Mrs. Thomas came to visit her daughter, Nanny Grace Thomas King, who lived in the main farmhouse. Gladys' mother would send her up to the big house to see whose carriage it was. (It is from these recollections of Gladys Thomas Ferris that we know where the old Hipp farm was located. Moody Thomas and Nancy Grace Thomas King were siblings, and in-laws of Grace King Hipp. They were also neighbors.)
Mack Herron King and Nanny Grace Thomas' first two children, Andy and Robbie, were born there on the Hipp farm in 1916 and 1918. As no birth records were kept at that time, these children had what was recorded as a "delayed birth certificate"; at the point when a birth record became necessary, the family brought to the court house whatever recording they personally had made, such as the family Bible, to establish the date. The Hipp farm lies in Steele Creek Twp., NC, just on the border of North and South Carolina. From the deed, located in the Mecklenburg Co. Courthouse, it has been established that these two children were born in NC.
Dr. Wylie, a well-known area surgeon, had built a dam on the Catawba River to generate power for his home. People living in the area asked to have the power extended to their homes, and Dr. Wylie formed a power company, Southern Public Utilities. (James B. Duke, tobacco barron from Durhan NC and founder of Duke University, became an investor in the power company; when he died in 1924, the name was changed to Duke Power Company which remains today the supplier for the multi-state region.) While the Kings were living in the area, a flood occurred that took ten feet off the top of the dam, and Nanny Thomas King remained fearful of floodwaters for life. The rebuilding effort reestablished the height and doubled the width of the dam, and Mack King was hired to work on the project. Nanny remained at the farm, and Mack stayed at the dam site, living temporarily at the foreman's house, a two-story with rooms upstairs for a few workers.
When one of the houses in Power Company Village became available, Nanny and Mack and the children Andy and Robbie moved in, sometime between 1918 and 1920. Their next three children, M. H., Jetta, and Grace, were born there, and possibly Ruth. (This cluster of houses is in York Co., SC, just off India Hook Rd; a GPS reading taken from the road is 35 degrees 00.975" by 81 degrees 00.378".) Andy and Robbie would walk a mile up India Hook Road, just past the intersection, to attend a 2-room school. The church the Kings attended was also near this intersection. It is told that in summers, Mack would come from the work site to shore in a boat and Robbie would run down to take him his lunch.
In about 1926 or 1927, Mack King returned to Mecklenburg Co. NC with his family. His children had grown too old for the 2-room schoolhouse and would have to have been sent to school elsewhere, which the family could not afford. They moved near where Mack's brother John was a building contractor. John built the house on Wilkinson Blvd. in Charlotte, where Mack and Nanny lived the remainder of their lives. (Today, their driveway has been extended and has become Crispin Avenue.) Here Henry was born in 1927 and the twins Paul and Yates in 1929. They kept a large vegetable garden, some fruit trees, a bountiful pecan tree, and raised some poultry. Mack trained to become a plumber and worked at that career for the rest of his working life.
Charlotte grew into a major city over the course of their lifetime, and Wilkinson Blvd. became a busy major thoroughfare. Mack would frequently walk across the boulevard to a nearby grocery supermarket. In the summer of 1973, when he was 82 years old and in excellent health, he was making this crossing when he was hit by a motorist. He died shortly thereafter in the hospital. His wife Nanny survived him for nine more years.
These notes were compiled from personal knowledge and interviews of Jetta King Williams, Robbie King Whisnant, and the extensive research of Murphy Whisnant. The Catawba River Dam site and the company housing location was visited and photographed in Oct. 2007 by Nancy King Durham, Brady & Liz Williams, led by Murphy Whisnant. The Wilkinson Blvd. location was familiar to and loved by all the grandchildren. Elizabeth Ann Wilson (Williams), 2007
