Martin Luther King was born on October 13, 1899 in Covington County, Alabama, the son of John Daniel King and Martha Wishum. His father supported the family as a farmer in the county community of Loango. Ironically, President Bill Clinton's maternal great, great grandparent are buried there. By 1910, the family was living in the nearby community of River Falls with his father taking a job as a carpenter. When he reached high school age, he crossed the state line to attend Allentown High School. By 1918, he had taken a job as a carpenter in Santa Rosa County. Upon completing his college studies, he passed the Florida "Uniform State Teacher's Examination" and was granted his teachers certification in June 1927. So at the age of 28-years old he began his long and illustrious academic career. His first position that summer was with the small, rural Greenwood School on the Alabama/Florida State line. The next year was with the Fidelis School followed in 1929 at the McClellan School. In 1930, he wound up at Allentown High School until becoming the Principal of the Bagdad Elementary School in 1939. It was during this period that he met Ora Eulaylor "Laylor" Smith, the daughter of Farry M. and Susan Minnie Smith. She worked as a sewer at the underwear mill before the two married in 1933. In 1946, he became the principal of the Berryhill Elementary School before taking over the Canal Street Elementary School (in the old Milton High School building) in Milton in 1953. Here, he would remain until his death on August 19, 1965. He was buried in the Serenity Gardens Cemetery where he was joined by his beloved Laylor in 1991. He was not only a renowned educator in early Santa Rosa County, but was also a respected historian of local history. Mr. E. W. Carswell stated that, "his work is a near priceless contribution to regional archives and public information. It is a storehouse of romantically, rich and colorfully factual information about Santa Rosa County that is available nowhere else." (History of Santa Rosa County by M. Luther King)
Martin Luther King c1916 (1899-1965)
Martin Luther King, Milton educator and historian
Gravesite at Serenity Gardens, Milton, Florida
Martin, Eulaylor, Martha E.
left, Susan in lap c1938
Martin's wife, Ora Eulaylor "Laylor" Smith King