Dana W. King, twin brother of Dean W. King, M. D., of Boulder, Colo., was born in Alstead, NH June 29, 1832. His father was Captain William King, a man prominent in the militia of his time in Alstead.

He was educated in local schools and at nineteen, went to Boston to “seek his fortune.” Instead of fortune, he found a grocery store where he worked as a clerk for the next two years. Seeking more excitement, King signed on to a whaleboat on a trip that could have lasted a year of more. Just before the ship sailed, his twin brother found him and the two decided to head west. They made it as far as Detroit, where the two worked as clerks for a few months. Knowing that his parents had moved from Alstead to Nashua, Dana King decided to head back to NH to visit them.

He then entered the employ of Josephus Baldwin, manufacturer of bobbins and shuttles. He remained there until the spring of 1854, when he again sought his fortune in Kansas and Nebraska. While there, he “experienced all the ups and downs and hair-breadth escapes incidental to an unsettled country, including friendly and unfriendly relations with the wandering savages of the plains.” Having had enough of that sort of life, he returned to Nashua and obtained employment in the repair shop of the Nashua Manufacturing Company.

With the start of the Civil War in 1861, King figured this was the opportunity to make a name for himself and enlisted in Company F, First Regiment. New Hampshire Volunteers, and served with credit in the three-month campaign that opened the War of the Rebellion.

(Author’s Note: The First Regiment NH Volunteer Infantry was a three-month volunteer unit of the Union Army, organized in April 1861 in response to President Lincoln’s call for troops. Commanded by Colonel Mason W. Tappan, the regiment was mustered into federal service between May 1 and May 7, 1861. The regiment was well-equipped and praised by President Lincoln as one of the first complete regiments to reach the capital. It performed defensive duties to protect Washington and the upper Potomac River line against Confederate threats from Virginia. The regiment’s sole combat action occurred at Conrad’s Ferry where they exchanged gunfire with J.E.B. Stuart’s Black Horse Cavalry.)

He returned to NH with his command, but had not had enough of war. With duty complete for the First Regiment. New Hampshire Volunteers, Corporal King then enlisted in the Eighth Regiment Volunteers, and was commissioned Second Lieutenant of Company A.

The regiment was assigned to Gen. Benjamin F. Butler’s New Orleans expedition and sailed from Boston to Ship Island, at the mouth of the Mississippi River. King was in New Orleans after its capture and served in the engagements in which his regiment participated. In fact, he was in nearly all the battles and skirmishes of the Department of the Gulf and was promoted to Captain for meritorious conduct in the face of the enemy. He had a horse shot under him in Banks’ Red River expedition and was wounded and taken prisoner at the Sabine Cross Roads on April 8, 1864. During the next seven months, he was imprisoned at Shreveport, LA., and in the stockade at Tyler, TX., from which place, with other comrades, he made his escape. However, he was recaptured, and his punishment for escaping came close to causing his death.

His history here is somewhat fuzzy but it seems he gained his freedom by being exchanged for some Confederate prisoners, at which point, he rejoined his regiment at Natchez, MS. At the close of the war, on November 8, 1865, Dana King returned to Nashua, now a lieutenant-colonel, being the only remaining officer of those originally commissioned for the regiment, who was in the line when it left the state.

As a civilian, King was seen as a “prominent and active citizen of Nashua,” being elected register of deeds for Hillsborough County in 1868. He is an expert in examining land titles and his time is fully taken up in that occupation.

Colonel King makes no claim to the honors of an orator. But, his contemporaries said, “he is a talker, both interesting and humorous.”

As a civilian, the Colonel lived on Concord Street in a handsome house built in 1879. Conspicuous upon the outer wall of his castle, in enduring granite and blazoned in gold, is the corps badge of the Army of the Gulf.

Colonel King was a member of several fraternal organizations, a member of the John G. Foster post of the G.A.R., and has been a treasurer of the New Hampshire Veterans’ Association since its organization in 1877. He is also a member of the Universalist Church. He was married in Nashua in September 1857 to Jennie L. Carter, daughter of Joseph and Elmira Carter of Concord. The marriage produced two children.

Colonel Dana King died November 14, 1914 in Nashua and is buried at Nashua’s Edgewood Cemetery.

Source: History of the City of Nashua NH from the Earliest Settlement of Old Dunstable to the Year 1895 by Judge Edward E. Parker / Published by Telegraph Publishing Company 1897

Edited for brevity and clarity and submitted by Gary Ledoux