The assignment of Elias King as father of Isaac King is based on circumstantial arguments. It starts with a family tradition:

According to a story told by Floy Medora Akin Garner, in about 1862 the King family moved went to Haywood Co., Tennessee. A little town 10 or 12 miles from their home was Brownsville. Floy said that the King family moved from Mississippi to Tennessee because they had been told that a battle between the Confederates and Yankees was going to take place near where they lived in Mississippi. They left for Tennessee where some of Isaac’s brothers lived.263

The 1860 census of Haywood Co TN shows the family of Elias King in Brownsville:

Elias King 74 M Farmer VA
Elias King 37 M Farmer TN
Jane King 25 F TN
Bettie King 11 F TN
J H Smith 29* M Farmer TN
Martha J Smith 18* F TN
Nancy E King 13 F TN

* Married within the last year.

The two Elias Kings are also reported in the 1860 Slave Schedule for Dist. 8, Haywood Co TN, to be the owners of 27 and 6 slaves, respectively.

The King estate was quite large. Elias Sr. reported a real estate value of $40,000 and a personal property value of $27,400 (this would be mostly the value of his slaves). Elias Jr. reported a real estate value of $16,000 and a personal property value of $10,000.

It is assumed that the two men named Elias are father and son and that Martha J. King had married J. H. Smith within the preceeding year. It is likely that Jane King is the wife of Elias Jr. and likely that Martha J. Smith, Nancy E. King, and Bettie King are daughters of Elias Jr.

The wife of Elias Sr. (mother of Elias Jr.) was not listed, possibly because she is listed as “E. King” with Isaac and Mary Jane King in Mississippi at the time.

The adjacent listing in the 1860 census is for Saml. Wallace, overseer. Wallace was probably overseer for the King estate. Like Elias King Sr., Saml Wallace and his wife were born in VA, and possibly they came to Tennessee with Elias King.

It is notable that Isaac and Mary Jane did name their first son Elias--this would have been quite reasonable if that was the name of Isaac’s father and brother. It is also noteworthy that Rufus and Eliza King named their first daughter Elizabeth, making it possible that the E. King in the 1860 census of Hinds Co MS stood for Elizabeth King.

Also listed in Haywood Co TN in 1860, in the town of Wellwood, was Rufus King and his family. Rufus may have been another brother of Isaac.

Rufus King 39 M Farmer TN
Eliza King 34 F TN
Elizabeth King 13 F TN
John H King 11 M TN
Richard King 9 M TN
Lucian King 6 M TN
Anna King 2 F TN
David C Clark 21 M Overseer TN

Wellwood is about 10 ½ miles from Brownsville and it may have been to the home of Rufus King that the King family went in 1862.

Finally, the fact that Rufus and Eliza King named their firstborn Elizabeth supports that the wife of Elias King Sr was named Elizabeth.

A further bit of circumstantial evidence is that Florence King, daughter of Isaac and Mary Jane King, met and married William Calvin Dawson in Ripley, TN, in 1871. Ripley is only 19 miles from Brownsville, TN, and 30 miles from Wellwood, TN.

The Case for Assigning Elias King Sr. as Father of Isaac King

by Clayton Heathcock, 7 April 2008

I believe that Isaac's father was Elias King Sr,, a prosperous planter who lived in Brownsville, Haywood Co TN. I have only been able to locate Elias King in the census once--1860. He was 74 and was listed as head of household that included his son Elias King Jr. and his son-in-law J. H. Smith, and their families. Elias Sr. and Elias Jr., between them, owned 33 slaves, so they must have had a very substantial plantation. Their real estate was valued at $56,000, which was a lot in those days! In the town of Wellwood, which is about 10 1/2 miles from Brownsville, lived Rufus King and his family, including his wife Elisa and his eldest daughter Elizabeth.

Now, according to a story told to my cousin Ronald Ray Akin by Floy Medora Akin Garner, after Isaac died in the siege of Vicksburg, about 1862, the King family went to Haywood Co., Tennessee. This would have been Isaac's widow Mary Jane and all of the seven surviving children, from Elias (age 13) down to Otho (age 1) [Mary Ellen had already died as a child.]

Floy said that the King family moved from Mississippi to Tennessee because they had been told that a battle between the Confederates and Yankees was going to take place near where they lived in Mississippi. They left for Haywood County,Tennessee where some of Isaac’s brothers lived. She also said that there was a store and probably a post office called Rudolph near them . There was a big cedar tree at the side of the walk of the old King house in Tennessee. The house was brick and the foundations are all that is left today. Finally, she told Ronald Ray that there was a little town about 10 or 12 miles away from their home named Brownsville."

You can see that this agrees pretty well with what the census records about Haywood Co TN in 1860. I think that Rufus and Elias King Jr. were the brothers that Floy was talking about and that Elias King Sr. was his father. It would appear that Mary Jane and the children went to Wellwood to live with Rufus King and it is true that Brownsville is only 10 miles away.

Further circumstantial evidence is in the names:

(1) Isaac's father and brother were named Elias. Isaac and Mary Jane named their first son Elias. The name was used again by Florence King, who named her son William Elias (but he always went by Elias).

(2) Elias King Sr. had a son named Otho King, who died in Haywood Co TN in 1853 at the age of 23. Isaac and Mary Jane named their last son, born in 1861, Otho.

(3) The name Elias was used repeatedly in succeeding generations.

In 1869 Florence King married William Calvin Dawson in Ripley, which is about 20 miles from Brownsville. They had two children, a son named William Elias (b August 27, 1872) and and a daughter named John Eva, before W. C. Dawson died in 1876 (according to two different descendants, he got drunk and spent the night laying on the ground in the winter and died of pneumonia). 

*******************

NOTE ADDED 16 OCT 2020: This connection has now been verified by DNA. Using the Ancestry DNA ThruLines pocdcure, it was found that Clayton Heathcock Jr. and Jonathan Vailes have 16 cM of common DNA. This amount is clearly in the expected range for 4C2R (0-93 cM with median being 22 cM). Jonathan descends from Rufus King, son of Elias King Sr. The parallel lines may be seen visually in the multimedia.

1830 census of Rutherford Co TN:

Elias King - 1 male 40-50 (Elias), 1 male 15-20, 2 males 10-15, 1 male 5-10, 1 male under 5; 1 female 30-40.

1840 Census of Rutherford Co TN:

Elias King - 1 male 50-60 (Elias), 1 male 20-30, 2 males 10-15, 2 males 5-10; 1 female 40-50.

On 13 Feb 1842 Elias King married Eveline T. Adams in Rutherford Co TN According to the 1850 census, Eveline would have been about 31 years old and Elias about 54 years old. Probably she was his second wife, since she it too young to have been mother of John King. She could very well have been the mother of Martha, George and Nancy.

1850 census of Barefield, Rutherford Co TN:

Name Age
Elias King 62 m Farmer, value of property $11,000
Eveline King. 39 f
John H King. 35 m Farmer
Stephen S King. 17 m Student [This may be Swepson S. King]
Martha J King 8 f
Geo W King 6 6
? King. 2 f

Rutherford County is in the middle of Tennessee, close to the current capital city Nashville. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_County,_Tennessee

Between 1850 and 1860, Elias King relocated to Haywood County, in Western Tennessee, not far from the Mississippi river. In 1810 the area of Haywood Co was part of Indian Lands. The county was created in 1823. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haywood_County,_Tennessee

1860 census of Brownsville, Haywood Co TN:

Name Age
Elias King 74 M Farmer VA
Elias King 37 M Farmer TN
Jane King 25 F TN
Bettie King 11 F TN
J H Smith. 29* M Farmer TN married within the last year
Martha J Smith 18* F TN married within the last year
Nancy E King. 13 F TN

Notes on Brownsville, Haywood Co TN, taken from Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, reproduced on Genweb:1715

Brownsville, the county seat, located near the geographical center of the county, contains a population of about 2,600 (in 1887). The first dwelling house in the town was a log cabin, built in 1825 by Rev. Reuben Alfin.   It is still standing.  Hiram Bradford was the pioneer merchant and hotel-keeper. Coming from Louisiana in February, 1825, bringing with him a stock of goods, he attended the first sale of town lots, and purchased the corner where the Nelson Block now stands, erected a store-room and dwelling-house thereon, and opened the first store in the town. Soon thereafter he erected the frame hotel, which stood as a monument of his enterprise until 1868, when it was removed for more permanent improvements. The lumber used in the construction of these buildings was all sawed from the logs by hand, there being then no saw-mills in this part of the State. The rapid settlement of the town immediately followed; and Thomas J. Henderson is said to have been the first white child born within its limits. The Pioneer tradesmen were Donald McLeod, the tailor; Felix Rutherford, the hatter; Thomas Rutherford and Francis S. Cox, tanners; John Lawhorn and E. Drennon, blacksmiths; Levi Gardner, boot and shoe-maker, and John  Hardwick, wagon and repair shop. Other tradesmen and merchants soon followed, and at one time, between 1825 and 1885, there were thirteen business houses in the town.

The first physicians who settled in Brownsville were William C. Bruce, Johnson and Barbee, Dillard, Dorthel and Penn. The following is a list of the pioneer merchants of the town: Hiram Bradford, Richard W. Nixon, Mr. Dobbins, James Smith, E. S. Tappan, Hubbard, J. & R. Boyd, Francis S. Cox, C. Guyger, L. R. Leonard, J. C. Jones, Val. Sevier, Houston & Mulholland, W. E. Owen, R. W. Jones, M. & J. D. Ware, andWofford&Coleman. The first brick building in the town was tbe Methodist church, erected about the year 1831.  It is still standing and is now used as a carriage shop.  The first brick store room was built in 1831, by E. S. Tappan. The town and surrounding county, was booming with prosperity, when the great financial depression of 1837-40 struck it, causing all kinds of business to decline. In 1840 there were ten stores in the town, and only two or three of them survived the terrible shock. Nearly everybody was "broken up," and business became almost totally suspended until 1842, when it began to revive. Then the acquisition of property became rapid and easy, and the people en joyed an unprecedented season of prosperity, which continued up to the beginning of the civil war. he value of lands, slaves and all kinds of property more than doubled during that period.

The town had a gradual and substantial growth, and during this season of prosperity the following were the leading merchants and business firms thereof: Longley & Yancey, William Proudfit, R. F. Maelin & Co., Smith, Maclin & Loving, Gen. William Conner, William Sangster, James & Robert Boyd, Cromwell & Winchester, M.  & J. D. Ware, J. L. Winfield & Co., L. B. Leonard, Sangster & Sevier, James P. Wood Bro., Hiram & Miles Bradford, Dobbins, Bradford & Co., Bostic & Co., O. P. Taliaferro & Co. Gibbs, Tanner & Co., Lovelace & Co., Howell & Sanders, Winfield & Whitelaw. C. Buck, and Col. Bradford (son of Hiram Bradford), who is one of the leading merchants at the present writing.

During the war period of 1861-65, nearly all regular mercantile business of the town was suspended.  The merchants sold out their goods, and closed their stores in general, fearing to keep a stock on hand, because of the depredations of the marauding guerrilla bands. Many individuals then became merchants in a small way, by getting permits to transport cotton and goods through the military lines. And a few who took their chances to invest largely in this dangerous and uncertain business, became wealthy. This kind of business was carried on in a quiet way and not through the general stores.

At the close of the war, business again revived, and the high price of cotton gave it such an impetus, that the town of Brownsville soon put on city airs, and rushed to great prosperity. Business blocks were erected, and enormous rents were charged and paid for store rooms. The people were intoxicated with ideas of speculation, and knowing that Brownsville was located in a cotton growing district, rushed into business, with the expectation of amassing fortunes in an incredibly short time. Everything and everybody prospered for a season, but the price of cotton fell, so it ceased to be king --- the bauble burst, and in 1872 the decline of business began, and soon became more rapid than its advance had been.  Fortunes were swept away, and many business houses were closed.  This decline in business continued until near the present time, 1886.   The lowest ebb has been reached, and business has so far recovered, as to be at least in a healthy condition, and bids fair to have a gradual and substantial future growth.

The Phoenix, established in 1837, by Allen M. Scott, was the first paper published in Brownsville.  It was followed in 1840 by the publication of the Banner by David McPherson.  The printing press, which was brought to town by Mr. Scott, in 1837, changed from the hands of one political party to the other, and was used for printing partisa papers during the political campaigns.  The Bee was established in 1867, the States  in 1870, and the Democrat in 1874.    The Bee and the States were consolidated in 1880, and in June, 1886, that paper was consolidated with the Democrat. The new paper is called the States-Democrat, and is ably edited by Messrs. Green & Taylor, editors and publishers. It has a large circulation, and, being the only paper published in the county, its publishers are doing a very successful and remunerative business.

The Brownsville Manufacturing Company, with a capital of about $140,000, established and commenced the operation of a cotton-mill in 1874. The mill contained over 3,000 spindles, and had 125 looms, and required 120 hands to run it.  The company manufactured domestics and cotton drilling, and consumed 1,200 bales of cotton annually.   The mill was consumed by fire December 22, 1882, and it has not yet been rebuilt.   It made a home market for cotton, and gave employment to 120 persons, of whom about 80 were females.  It was of great benefit to the community, but proved unprofitable to the stockholders.

"Brownsville is the site of two female colleges, one union seminary, an excellent high school and first rate public school, ten churches and one weekly newspaper --- the States-Democrat --- well sustained." It also contains a Y. M. C. A., Temperance Alliance, and lodges of the following orders-. K. P., F. & A. M., K. of H., A. 0. U. W., and K. of G. B., all of which are in good condition.  

In September, 1878, the yellow fever made its appearance in Brownsville, and most of the inhabitants at once left the town, and fled to the country and elsewhere, and remained away until the epidemic ceased. Prominent among its victims were Andrew J. Klyce, Hon. Lewis D. Bond, ex-speaker of the House of Representatives in the General Assembly, Dr. John Ware, W. Ivie Westbrook, editor of the Bee, and Mike McGrath. About 200 of the inhabitants of Brownsville fell victims to the terrible disease.

GENEALOGICAL ABSTRACTS FROM REPORTED DEATHS
THE NASHVILLE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE 1857-18601716
By Jonathan Kennon Thompson Smith
October 21, 1858
GEORGE W. KING s/o Elias King, Sr., died Haywood Co., Tenn., Sept. 4, 1858.

If Elizabeth was the first wife of Elias King Sr., it appears that there was a divorce, either formal or informal, after the birth of S. S. King in 1832. Elias King Sr. married second Evaline Adams in 1842.