Ada Copeland (ca. 23 December 1860 – 14 April 1964) was the common-law wife of the American geologist Clarence King, who was appointed as the first director of the United States Geological Survey. Copeland was presumed born a slave on or around 23 December 1860, in Georgia. As a young woman, she moved to New York in the mid-1880s and worked as a nursemaid. In about 1887,she became involved with Clarence King, an upper-class white man who presented himself to her as a light-skinned black Pullman porter under the name of James Todd. (Given the long history of slavery in the United States, many African Americans had European ancestry. Some passed or identified as white, given their majority white ancestry.)