KENTUCKY: A History of the State, Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, 4th ed., 
1887 Cumberland Co.

WILLIAM FAYETTE ALEXANDER, a son of Fayette Wood and Nancy Gertrude 
(King) Alexander, was born April 22, 1848.  His father, Fayette W. 
Alexander, a prominent business man in Cumberland County, was born 
September 30, 1811, in Henry County, Va.  He began mercantile business 
early in life, by clerking in a store of general merchandise in the town
of Burkesville.  January 8, 1840, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Nancy Gertrude King, the second of ten children born to Milton and Susan
(Wiles) King, both natives of Albemarle County, Va.  Milton King, a son 
of John Edwards King, was born January 17, 1799 and was married in his 
sixteenth year to Miss Susan Wiles, who at the time of her marriage was 
in her fifteenth year.  This marriage occurred in Burkesville, where 
they had both lived from early childhood, and was blessed by ten 
children: Sally Wiles King (wife of Josiah Harris, a merchant of Adair 
County), Nancy Gertrude King (wife of Fayette W. Alexander), Sophia 
(wife of Almarine Alexander), John Q. A. King (elected lieutenant 
governor of Kentucky in 1863, and afterward a prominent member of the 
Paducah bar, who died in Denver, Col.), Ellen Hopkins (wife of Judge
William F. Owsley), Mary Ann (wife of Clinton C. Alexander), Josephine
Bonaparte ( the second wife of Almarine Alexander), Susan Victoria (wife
of Louis Sweet, a wholesale clothing merchant of New York City), Milton 
Wiles King (an attorney at law living in Missouri), and Burgess King 
(who died at about the age of twenty-one, in 1857, while attending 
medical lectures at Lexington, Ky.).  Almarine and Clinton C. Alexander 
were merchants and lived in Sherman and Bonham, Tex., respectively.  Of 
this family of children, five are now living, Nancy Gertrude, Mary Ann, 
Josephine B., Susan Victoria and Milton Wiles.  Milton King began 
writing in his father's office (county and circuit court clerk) at about
the age of seventeen, which he continued until he was appointed to fill 
the position previously occupied by his father.  This was under the old 
constitution when the two offices were combined in one, and he held this
position until the adoption of the new constitution, which made the 
office an elective one.  He then retired to his farm, two miles north of
Burkesville, known as Melmont, a name which it still bears, where he 
remained until 1857.  He then removed to Paducah, Ky., where he died in 
August, 1872, leaving a comfortable estate, having been worth before the
war about $30,000, most of which was lost as a result of the freeing of 
his slaves.  He was a member of the Christian Church, and in politics 
was a Whig, being a sympathizer with the Confederacy during the late 
war, and Democratic after that event.  His wife, who was also a member 
of the Christian Church, departed this life in 1839 in the thirty-ninth 
year of her age, the mother of the ten children above named.  Milton 
King was married a second time, in Virginia, to Miss Martha Harris, who 
died at an old age, in Paducah, in 1873.  Maj.-Gen. John Edwards King, 
great grandfather of William F. Alexander, was born December 21, 1757, 
and married Miss Sally Clifton, in Fayette County, Ky., and became the 
father of five children: William King (who emigrated to Arkansas), 
Valentine (who emigrated to Louisiana and reared a large family of 
children), Edwards (who died in Cumberland County, Ky.), Milton, and Rev
Alfred King (who was first a prominent attorney of Cumberland and
surrounding counties, and afterward a minister of considerable celebrity
in the Baptist Church).  He removed to Victoria, Tex., in 1859.  John 
Edwards King was deputy to the first clerk of Cumberland County, under 
the old constitution, and was the second clerk of the county, which 
position he held twenty years.  He was a man in good circumstances, and 
prominent among the pioneers of Cumberland County.  He was a 
major-general of volunteers in the war of 1812, was in politics an "old 
line Whig," and died May 13, 1828.  The King family are of 
Scotch-English origin, and have been among the most celebrated families 
of the State.  John Edwards King's mother was a Miss Edwards, a 
descendant of John Edwards, who during the reign of George III received 
a large land grant where the city of New York now stands from his 
sovereign, which tract he leased to different parties in the city for
the term of ninety-nine years.  This lease expired about 1873, but his
descendants lost the estate, $90,000,000.  To the marriage of Fayette W.
and Nancy Gertrude Alexander were born ten children: Preston Pope, who
died in Texas on September 15, 1873, in the thirty-second year of his 
age: Wickliffe Bouldin, who died in his fourteenth year, at Paducah, 
June 20, 1858; Mary Ellen, who died at Harrodsburg, Ky., while attending
Daughters' College there, in 1860, age fifteen years; William F.; Susan 
A., wife of Dr. W.G. Hunter, of Burkesville; Sally A., wife of W.F. 
Owsley, Jr., of Burkesville; Horace King, of Burkesville; Victoria M., 
who died in infancy; Charles Wickliffe, of Burkesville, and Nancy A., 
wife of John H. Ritchey, a merchant of Burkesville.  Fayette W. 
Alexander was during life a leading merchant and business man of 
Burkesville, who accumulated in his business career $130,000.  He, in 
partnership with William F. Owsley, took charge of a branch of the Bank 
of Louisville, of Louisville, Ky., which they managed until 1864, during
which time F.W. Alexander was president of the institution.  On January 
7, 1864, he departed this life in the fifty-third year of his age.  Mrs.
Alexander, who is still living, is a member of the Christian Church, and
in the sixty-seventh year of her age (1886).  William F. Alexander, a 
native of Burkesville, attended the schools of Cumberland County until 
1866, when he attended a ten months' term of the Urania College, of 
Glasgow, Ky.  He then attended one term of ten months at the business 
college of New Haven, Conn., graduating in 1868.  He began business when
19 years of age, in partnership with Maj. C.T. Cheek, and they handled a
line of general  merchandise, with a joint capital of $8,000. This they 
continued three years, when Mr. Alexander bought Mr. Cheek's interest in
the business and continued it on his own account three years, when he 
sold out, and in 1875 embarked in the wholesale queensware business in 
Louisville, in partnership with Capt. R.L. Boyd, under the firm name of 
Boyd & Alexander.  He remained in this business two years, then returned
to Burkesville, Ky.  He was united in marriage to Miss Georgia H.
Phelps, a daughter of Capt. A.J. Phelps and Anna M. (Hooker) Phelps, the
former of Preble, N.Y., the latter of Brook County, Va.  To this
marriage have been born three children: Lillian Phelps, born June 23, 
1873, died September 15, 1874, aged fourteen months; Lalla Preston, born
May 20, 1879, and Addie Hooker, born October 25, 1885.  Mr. and Mrs. 
Alexander are both members of the Christian Church and Mr. Alexander is 
Democratic in politics.

King Wiles Harris Owsley Sweet Clifton Hunter Ritchey Cheek Boyd Phelps
Hooker Edwards Alexander
=
Adair-KY Fayette-KY Henry-VA Albemarle-VA Brook-VA CO NY MO TX AK LA CT

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/cumberland/alexander.wf.txt