KINGSTON, WILLIAM HENRY GILES (1814-1880), English novelist, son of Lucy Henry Kingston, was born in London on the 28th of February 1814. Much of his youth was spent at Oporto, where his father was a merchant, but when he entered the business, he made his headquarters in London. He early wrote newspaper articles on Portuguese subjects. These were translated into Portuguese, and the author received a Portuguese order of knighthood and a pension for his services in the conclusion of the commercial treaty of 1842. In 1844 his first book, The Circassian Chief, appeared, and in 1845 The Prime Minister, a Story of the Days of the Great Marquis of Pombal. The Lusitanian Sketches describe Kingston’s travels in Portugal. In 1851 Peter the Whaler, his first book for boys, came out. These books proved so popular that Kingston retired from business, and devoted himself to the production of tales of adventure for boys. Within thirty years he wrote upwards of one hundred and thirty such books. He had a practical knowledge of seamanship, and his stories of the sea, full of thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes, exactly hit the taste of his boy readers. Characteristic specimens of his work are The Three Midshipmen; The Three Lieutenants; The Three Commanders; and The Three Admirals. He also wrote popular accounts of famous travellers by land and sea, and translated some of the stories of Jules Verne.
In all philanthropic schemes Kingston took deep interest; he was the promoter of the mission to seamen; and he acted as secretary of a society for promoting an improved system of emigration. He was editor of the Colonist for a short time in 1844 and of the Colonial Magazine and East Indian Review from 1849 to 1851. He was a supporter of the volunteer movement in England from the first. He died at Willesden on the 5th of August 1880.
KINGSTON, the chief city of Frontenac county, Ontario, Canada, at the north-eastern extremity of Lake Ontario, and the mouth of the Cataraqui River. Pop. (1901), 17,961. It is an important station on the Grand Trunk railway, the terminus of the Kingston & Pembroke railway, and has steamboat communication with other ports on Lake Ontario and the Bay of Quinte, on the St Lawrence and the Rideau canal. It contains a fine stone graving dock, 280 ft. long, 100 ft. wide, and with a depth of 16 ft. at low water on the sill. The fortifications, which at one time made it one of the strongest fortresses in Canada, are now out of date. The sterility of the surrounding country, and the growth of railways have lessened its commercial importance, but it still contains a number of small factories, and important locomotive works and ship-building yards. As an educational and residential centre it retains high rank, and is a popular summer resort. It is the seat of an Anglican and of a Roman Catholic bishopric, of the Royal Military College (founded by the Dominion government in 1875), of an artillery school, and of Queen’s University, an institution founded in 1839 under the nominal control of the Presbyterian church, now including about 1200 students. In the suburbs are a Dominion penitentiary, and a provincial lunatic asylum. Founded by the French in 1673, under the name of Kateracoui, soon changed to Fort Frontenac, it played an important part in the wars between English and French. Taken and destroyed by the English in 1758, it was refounded in 1782 under its present name, and was from 1841 to 1844 the capital of Canada.
KINGSTON, a city and the county-seat of Ulster county, New York, U.S.A., on the Hudson River, at the mouth of Rondout Creek, about 90 m. N. of New York and about 53 m. S. of Albany. Pop. (1900), 24,535—3551 being foreign-born; (1910 census) 25,908. It is served by the West Shore (which here crosses Rondout Creek on a high bridge), the New York Ontario & Western, the Ulster & Delaware, and the Wallkill Valley railways, by a ferry across the river to Rhinecliff, where connexion is made with the New York Central & Hudson River railroad, and by steamboat lines to New York, Albany and other river points. The principal part of the city is built on a level plateau about 150 ft. above the river; other parts of the site vary from flatlands to rough highlands. To the N.W. is the mountain scenery of the Catskills, to the S.W. the Shawangunk Mountains and Lake Mohonk, and in the distance across the river are the Berkshire Hills. The most prominent public buildings are the post office and the city hall; in front of the latter is a Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument. The city has a Carnegie library. The “Senate House”—now the property of the state, with a colonial museum—was erected about 1676; it was the meeting place of the first State Senate in 1777, and was burned (except the walls) in October of that year. The court house (1818) stands on the site of the old court house, in which Governor George Clinton was inaugurated in July 1777, and in which Chief Justice John Jay held the first term of the New York Supreme Court in September 1777. The Elmendorf Tavern (1723) was the meeting-place of the New York Council of Safety in October 1777. Kingston Academy was organized in 1773, and in 1864 was transferred to the Kingston Board of Education and became part of the city’s public school system; its present building dates from 1806. Kingston’s principal manufactures are tobacco, cigars and cigarettes, street railway cars and boats; other manufactures are Rosendale cement, bricks, shirts, lace curtains, brushes, motor wheels, sash and blinds. The city ships large quantities of building and flag stones quarried in the vicinity. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $5,000,922, an increase of 26.5% since 1900.
In 1614 a small fort was built by the Dutch at the mouth of Rondout Creek, and in 1652 a settlement was established in the vicinity and named Esopus after the Esopus Indians, who were a subdivision of the Munsee branch of the Delawares, and whose name meant “small river,” referring possibly to Rondout Creek. The settlement was deserted in 1655-56 on account of threatened Indian attacks. In 1658 a stockade was built by the order of Governor Peter Stuyvesant, and from this event the actual founding of the city is generally dated. In 1659 the massacre of several drunken Indians by the soldiers caused a general rising of the Indians, who unsuccessfully attacked the stockade, killing some of the soldiers and inhabitants, and capturing and torturing others. Hostilities continued into the following year. In 1661 the governor named the place Wiltwyck and gave it a municipal charter. In 1663 it suffered from another Indian attack, a number of the inhabitants being slain or taken prisoners. The English took possession in 1664, and in 1660 Wiltwyck was named Kingston, after Kingston Lisle, near Wantage, England, the family seat of Governor Francis Lovelace. In the same year the English garrison was removed. In 1673-1674 Kingston was again temporarily under the control of the Dutch, who called it Swanenburg. In 1777 the convention which drafted the new state constitution met in Kingston, and during part of the year Kingston was the seat of the new state government. On the 16th of October 1777 the British under General Sir John Vaughan (1748-95) sacked it and burned nearly all its buildings. In 1908 the body of George Clinton was removed from Washington, D.C., and reinterred in Kingston on the 250th anniversary of the building of the stockade. In 1787 Kingston was one of the places contemplated as a site for the national capital. In 1805 it was incorporated as a village, and in 1872 it absorbed the villages of Rondout and Wilbur and was made a city.
See M. Schoonmaker, History of Kingston (New York, 1888).
KINGSTON, a borough of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the North Branch of the Susquehanna river, opposite Wilkes-Barré. Pop. (1900), 3846 (1039 foreign-born); (1910) 6449. Kingston is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna &. Western and the Lehigh Valley railways. It is the seat of Wyoming Seminary (1844; co-educational), a well-known secondary school. Anthracite coal is mined here; there are railway repair and machine-shops; and among the borough’s manufactures are hosiery, silk goods, underwear and adding machines. Kingston (at first called “Kingstown,” from Kings Towne, Rhode Island) was commonly known in its early days as the “Forty Township,” because the first permanent settlement was made by forty pioneers from Connecticut, who were sent out by the Susquehanna Company and took possession of the district in its name in 1769. In 1772 the famous “Forty Fort,” a stockade fortification, was built here, and in 1777 it was rebuilt, strengthened and enlarged. Here on the 3rd of July 1778 about 400 men and boys met, and under the command of Colonel Zebulon Butler (1731-95) went out to meet a force of about 1100 British troops and Indians, commanded by Major John Butler and Old King (Sayenqueraghte). The Americans were defeated in the engagement that followed, and many of the prisoners taken were massacred or tortured by the Indians. A monument near the site of the fort commemorates the battle and massacre. Kingston was incorporated as a borough in 1857. (See [Wyoming Valley].)