Herbert A. King

Herbert Alfred King (1858-1925) kept Billerica's records and its accounts for more than twenty years as Town Clerk and Town Treasurer. He was born on July 3, 1858, the second son of Samuel Henry King, a native of Landaff, New Hampshire, and Mary J. (Patten) King, a daughter of Aaron H. Patten of Billerica. His brothers and sisters were Henry Patten, Anna Eliza, who died in childhood, Mary Ella and George Bliss. He entered the Howe School in 1873.

His earliest town offices in the surviving reports were Superintendent of Highways in 1889 and 1890 and auditor in 1890. When Dudley Foster, clerk and treasurer since 1855, died in 1895, King succeeded him as Town Clerk while John A. Richardson took the treasury; from 1900 King held both offices, by annual election until 1917, and sat ex officio on the Board of Registrars. With Franklin Jaquith and Martha A. Dodge he served on the committee appointed to prepare the town's early records for printing, himself comparing the copyist's work, and in 1899 and 1900 he reported to town meeting on the cost of publishing the first volume. He was a Cemetery Commissioner from 1899 until his death, a surveyor of wood and lumber from 1899 to 1908, and in 1912 secretary of the new Finance Committee under Frederic S. Clark. That summer he was named with Charles H. Williams and Thomas F. Sheridan to draft the town's resolutions in memory of the moderator, Charles H. Kohlrausch.

When he gave up the clerk's and treasurer's offices in 1917, the annual meeting, on motion of Frederic S. Clark, gave him a rising vote of thanks "for his long and faithful service as Town Clerk and Treasurer," and the moderator promptly put him on committees to codify the town by-laws and to plan more office room in the Town Hall. In October 1918, when Town Clerk Albert S. Bull resigned to enter the aviation service, the selectmen appointed King to finish the term, and he gave the office back when Bull returned after the armistice.

Outside the town offices he was a deacon of the First Congregational Church, treasurer of the Bennett Public Library Association, and Worshipful Master of the Thomas Talbot Lodge of Masons in 1903 and 1904. He died on May 29, 1925, at the age of 66.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 85, KING family
2. Catalogue of Howe High School, 1897, pupils admitted 1873
3. Report of Committee on Town Records, 1899
4. Annual Town Meeting 1917, vote of thanks to the Town Clerk and Treasurer
5. Appointment as Town Clerk, October 1918 (Town Report 1918)
6. 'Billerica' magazine, July 1912 (First Congregational Church officers)
7. Thomas Talbot Lodge, A.F. and A.M., list of Masters (MasonicGenealogy)
8. Deaths, 1925 (Town Report)