Ledyard — Jackson T. King Jr., the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe’s longtime general counsel, who was instrumental in settling tribal land claims prior to the tribe’s opening Foxwoods Resort Casino, died Monday of cancer. He was 72.

“We are very saddened to learn that Jackson King, our longtime attorney and dear friend, has passed away,” Lori Potter, the tribe’s director of communications, said Tuesday in an email confirming King’s death.

“Attorney King was not only a tremendous asset to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation over a career extending more than 30 years," she said, "but to all of Indian Country as well."

“We've lost a great friend, mentor and family member today — one with a heart of gold and a warrior spirit that will never be forgotten,” she wrote.

Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council, described King as “an amazing human being — a kind, gentle straight-shooter who could take the most complicated discussion and break it down in a way everybody could understand it.”

Butler said he considered King a personal mentor.

“He spent a lot of time with me. He was probably second only to Skip in terms of knowledge about the tribe,” Butler said, referring to Richard “Skip” Hayward, the man credited with resurrecting the Mashantuckets in the 1970s. “Jackson believed in righting the injustices the (tribal) nation faced.”

King, a partner in a Norwich law firm when he represented Ledyard homeowners involved in land claims asserted by the Mashantuckets, later represented the tribe, which opened Foxwoods Resort Casino in 1992.

He had been the tribe's general counsel since 1993.

Born in New Haven on June 19, 1943, King graduated from Notre Dame High School in West Haven in 1961 and from the University of Connecticut in 1965.

He graduated first in his class at the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1968.

After graduating law school, he clerked with Chief Justice John Hamilton King, to whom he was not related, at the Connecticut Supreme Court.

He joined the law firm of Brown, Jacobson, Jewett and Laudone in Norwich, and became a partner in 1971.

He is survived by his wife, Kate Lockhart, and their two sons and daughter-in-law, Daniel Lockhart King and his wife Marie, of Reston, Va., and Jeremy Lockhart King of Brooklyn, N.Y.

The family will receive visitors from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday at the Dinoto Funeral Home, 17 Pearl St., Mystic.

A memorial gathering will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Stonington Country Club, 396 Taugwonk Road, Stonington.