The 20-foot blue whale at Rowan Park, brought to Fayetteville from Wilmington decades ago, holds a special place in the hearts of the children who have played there over the decades.
But another, lesser-known but just as beloved icon of the park, is "Mr. King."
Born Moses King in February 1860 on Raleigh Road, he lived in a shack without electricity or plumbing on the grounds of the park alongside Woodside Avenue, where he tended to goats, ducks and chickens in his small fenced yard. His kindness made him a favorite among neighborhood kids and their parents.
Wanda Holyoke, 73, grew up in the 1950s and '60s on Shaw Road, a few miles north of Rowan Park. A day at the park wasn’t complete without paying a visit to King, she said.
“I was really just fascinated by him,” she said by phone from her Florida home last week. “I would always go sit and talk with him.”
King would hand his Bible over to the children, they would pick a page, and he would quote any verse on the page from memory, Holyoke said.
He let the children feed his goats, and they knew they could share whatever was on their minds with him.
“He had the patience of Job,” Holyoke said. “He just listened to the children as we talked.”
Holyoke said her mother, Irene Philbeck, and other families at Grace Baptist Church gave him socks, gloves, soap and other necessities at Christmas. One Fayetteville businessman had lunch delivered to King each day, Holyoke recalled.
Residents call for the city to commemorate King
Holyoke wants others to remember King. She said she’s in favor of a memorial or plaque to commemorate him in the park.
“He was a large piece of Fayetteville history,” she said.
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In 2002, Fayetteville resident Franklin Reid told the Observer that he had requested the installation of a plaque to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission. The commission asked city officials to study Reid's request.
Reid's call to remember King reverberated throughout the community after a February 2002 Observer story. In the days after it was published, one of King's relatives, a local political figure and others who remembered the legend came forward to share their fond memories of King, and echo that he should be honored. Their remarks were published in another Observer story that same month.
More than 20 years later, there still is no memorial to King at Rowan Park.
Parks and Recreation director Michael Gibson said Wednesday that he is not familiar with King and that the commission is not currently working on any projects to honor him, but that he wanted to learn more about King’s story.
Gibson isn't alone. Holyoke said that a recent discussion on the "I Grew Up In Fayetteville, NC" private Facebook group sparked discussion and questions about King's life.
King lived to be more than 100 years old
According to a 2002 Observer story, King was a nurse in his younger days and lived in Florida and Georgia before returning to Fayetteville in 1911.
He lived in the shack at Rowan Park for decades, often seen wearing wide-brimmed hats, patched overalls and leather shoes, the same story said. He walked with the aid of a cane because as a young man, he lost a leg to blood poisoning, it said.
King shared a close bond with Hay Street resident John G. Shaw, who employed King; later, King became his caretaker, according to the 2002 story. For decades, King would walk up the hill to Shaw's home for dinner, where a meal would be waiting for him, Shaw's grandson told The Observer.
Each night before bed, King swept his dirt front yard. If he found possum or weasel prints the next morning, he would set traps for the animals, Bill Vanstory told The Fayetteville Observer in 2002. Former Cumberland County U.S. Rep. Congressman Charlie Rose said he saw Shaw read by kerosene lamp at night.
Though the land he lived on was sold to the city and became a park in the 1950s, King was allowed to keep his home, the story said. A fire on Christmas Day in 1966 destroyed his dwelling, but he and his animals escaped without injury and King went to live with his niece Emma McKeithan, the story said.
McKeithan told the Observer that her uncle wasn't much of a singer, but he liked to play the guitar.
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After the fire, people raised money to build King a new house, but his worsening health prevented him from moving into it. King died Jan. 12, 1968, just a few weeks before his 107th birthday. He was buried at Northside Cemetery off Brinkley Street.
But he lives on in the hearts of the lives he touched at Rowan Park all those years ago.
Have a story to share about Moses King? Email reporter Taylor Shook at tshook@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville remembers Moses King, a man adored by children long ago
