Clarence Rivers King (January 6, 1842 â€" December 24, 1901) was an
American geologist, mountaineer and author. He was the first director
of the United States Geological Survey from 1879 to 1881. King was
noted for his exploration of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.Clarence
King was the son of James Rivers King and Florence Little King.
Clarence's father was part of a family firm engaged in trade with
China, which kept him away from home a great deal, and he died in
1848, so Clarence was brought up primarily by his mother. By 1848, his
only two siblings had also died.Clarence developed an early interest
in outdoor exploration and natural history, which was encouraged by
his mother and by Reverend Dr. Roswell Park, head of the Christ Church
Hall school in Pomfret, Connecticut, that Clarence attended until he
was ten. He then attended schools in Boston and New Haven and, at age
thirteen, was accepted to the prestigious Hartford High School. He was
a good student and a versatile athlete, of short stature but unusually
strong.His mother received an income from the King family business
until it met with a series of problems and dissolved in 1857. After a
few years of straitened circumstances, during part of which Clarence
suffered from a serious depression, his mother married George S.
Howland in July 1860. Howland financed Clarence's enrollment in the
Sheffield Scientific School affiliated with Yale College in 1860. Clarence King Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter