Park improvements were initiated immediately. The village was absorbed into City of New York in 1898, and the property came under the jurisdiction of the Parks Department. After her death in 1896, the house and the remaining eleven acres were bought by the Village of Jamaica for $50,000. Cornelia King, granddaughter of Rufus, was the last family member to occupy the house. King’s eldest son John Alsop King lived here and updated the house with Greek Revival details, such as the entrance portico. King added the eastern section of the house and a summer kitchen, and introduced Georgian and Federal design elements, such as the dining room with its curved end wall and the neoclassical marble fireplace in the parlor.īy the time of Rufus King’s death in 1827, the estate had grown to 122 acres. He planted orchards, fields, and some of the stately oak trees that still survive near the house. In 1805 Rufus King purchased the farmhouse and a 90-acre farm for $12,000. The earliest part of the building dates to the mid-1700s.
King Manor reflects the changing tastes of its owners and the times in which they lived. King’s five sons had prominent careers in public service as a Governor of New York, a President of what is now Columbia University, a founder of the Cincinnati Law School, a banker, and a physician. In 1816 he was the last Federalist to run for the presidency, losing the election to James Monroe. King served as Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain from 1796 to 1803 and again from 1825 to 1826. An outspoken opponent of slavery, he led the Senate debates in 18 against the admission of Missouri as a slave state. Senate, serving from 1789 to 1796 and again from 1813 to 1825. Soon after his marriage to Mary Alsop in 1786, King relocated to New York where he was appointed to the first U.S. King was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and made his most famous contribution to American history as a framer and signer of the Constitution.
He served as a member of the Confederation Congress from 1784 to 1787, where he introduced a plan that prevented the spread of slavery into the Northwest Territories. Two years later, King was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts. He suspended his law studies to serve in the Revolutionary War in 1778. The son of a wealthy lumber merchant from Maine, King graduated from Harvard in 1777. King Manor Museum and Park in Jamaica was once the home of Rufus King (1755-1827), a distinguished lawyer, statesman, and gentleman farmer.