.gif)
John Parker (abolitionist)
Encyclopedia
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
abolitionist, inventor, iron moulder and industrialist who helped hundreds of slaves to freedom in the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
resistance movement
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
based in Ripley, Ohio
Ripley, Ohio
Ripley is a village in Brown County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River 50 miles southeast of Cincinnati. The population was 1,745 at the 2000 census.-History:...
. He was one of the few blacks to patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
his inventions before 1900. His house
John P. Parker House
The John P. Parker House is a National Historic Landmark in Ripley, Ohio. It was home to former slave and inventor John P. Parker from 1853 to his death in 1900, and was a stop on the Underground Railroad....
in Ripley has been designated a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
and restored.
Early life and education
Parker was born in Norfolk, VirginiaNorfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
, the son of a slave
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
mother and white father. Born into slavery, at the age of eight John was forced to walk to Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, where he was sold to a doctor from Mobile, Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
. While working in the doctor's house as a domestic servant, John was taught to read and write by the doctor's family, although the law forbade slaves' being educated. During his apprenticeship in a foundry, John attempted escape and had conflicts with officials. He asked one of the doctor's patients, a widow, to purchase him. She enabled him to hire out to earn money, and he purchased his freedom from her for $1,800 in 1845. He earned the money through his work in two of Mobile's iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
foundries and occasional odd jobs.
Marriage and family
Parker left the South, first settling in Jeffersonville, IndianaJeffersonville, Indiana
Jeffersonville is a city in Clark County, Indiana, along the Ohio River. Locally, the city is often referred to by the abbreviated name Jeff. It is directly across the Ohio River to the north of Louisville, Kentucky along I-65. The population was 44,953 at the 2010 census...
, then Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
, where there were a larger free black community and jobs in the bustling port. There in 1848 he married Miranda Boulden, free born in the city. They moved to Ripley
Ripley, Ohio
Ripley is a village in Brown County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River 50 miles southeast of Cincinnati. The population was 1,745 at the 2000 census.-History:...
, a growing center of abolitionist activity, and had six children together:
- Hale Giddings Parker, b. 1851, graduated from Oberlin CollegeOberlin CollegeOberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
's classical program and became the principal of a black school in St. Louis; later he studied law and in 1894 moved to Chicago to become an attorney - Cassius Clay Parker, b. 1853 (the first two sons were named after prominent abolitionists); he studied at Oberlin College and became a teacher in Indiana.
- Horatio W. Parker, b. 1856, became a principal of a school in Illinois; he later taught in St. Louis.
- Hortense ParkerHortense ParkerHortense Parker Gilliam, born Hortense Parker , was the first known African-American graduate of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, in 1883. She taught music and piano at elementary school in Kansas City, Missouri from 1906-1913. That year she married James Marcus Gilliam, and moved with him to St...
, b. 1859; she and her two sisters all studied music; Hortense was among the first African-American graduates of Mount Holyoke CollegeMount Holyoke CollegeMount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
; after marriage in 1913, she moved to St. Louis and continued to teach music. Her husband was a college graduate who served as principal of a school. - Portia, b. 1865, became a music teacher
- Bianca, b. 1871, became a music teacher
The parents ensured that all their children were educated. Two generations from slavery, all six went to college and entered the middle class.
Underground Railroad
In Ripley, Parker joined the resistance movement to aid slaves' escaping across the river from Kentucky get North to freedom. He guided hundreds of slaves, continuing despite a $1,000 bounty placed on his head by slaveholders. The federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 increased the penalties for his activism and meant that he risked his own freedom every time he went to Kentucky to help slaves to escape. During the Civil War, he recruited a few hundred slaves for the Union ArmyUnion Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
.
Industrialist
The historian Stuart Seely Sprague has researched much information about Parker and his life. Beginning as an iron moulder, Parker patented a number of mechanical and industrial inventions, including the John P. Parker tobacco press and harrow (or pulverizer), patented in 1884 and 1885. He had invented the pulverizer while still a young man in Mobile in the 1840s. He was one of the few blacks before 1900 to patent an invention.In 1865 with a partner, he bought a foundry company, which they called the Ripley Foundry and Machine Company. Parker managed the company, which manufactured engines, Dorsey's patent reaper and mower, and sugar mill. In 1876 he brought in a partner to manufacture threshers, and the company became Belchamber and Parker. Although they dissolved the partnership two years later, Parker continued to build his business, adding a blacksmith shop and machine shop. In 1890, Parker built the Phoenix Foundry, after a destructive fire at his first facility. It was the largest between Cincinnati and Portsmouth, Ohio
Portsmouth, Ohio
Portsmouth is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Scioto County. The municipality is located on the northern banks of the Ohio River and east of the Scioto River in Southern Ohio. The population was 20,226 at the 2010 census.-Foundation:...
.
Legacy and honors
- The John P. Parker Historical Society was formed in 1996 to preserve and interpret knowledge of John Parker and his family; it has worked to restore the house and operate it as a museum with exhibits and educational programs.
- His autobiography, a slave narrativeSlave narrativeThe slave narrative is a literary form which grew out of the written accounts of enslaved Africans in Britain and its colonies, including the later United States, Canada and Caribbean nations...
, was published in 1996 as HIS PROMISED LAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN P. PARKER, FORMER SLAVE AND CONDUCTOR ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. In the 1880s, Parker gave interviews to the journalist Frank Moody Gregg of the Chattanooga News, who had been researching the resistance movement. He never published his manuscript, and the historian Stuart Seely Sprague found Gregg's manuscript and notes in Duke UniversityDuke UniversityDuke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
archives. He edited the memoir for publication, to keep Parker's language, and added a detailed biography in the preface. - The John P. Parker HouseJohn P. Parker HouseThe John P. Parker House is a National Historic Landmark in Ripley, Ohio. It was home to former slave and inventor John P. Parker from 1853 to his death in 1900, and was a stop on the Underground Railroad....
was designated a National Historic LandmarkNational Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1997 by the US Department of Interior.
In popular culture
- In her children's book, Trouble Don't Last (2003), Shelly Pearsall based her character of "The River Man" on Parker, as he helped so many runaway slaves cross the Ohio River.
Further reading
- Blacks in Science and Education, edited by Vivian O. Sammons (Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishers), 1989. p. 184
- http://books.google.com/books?id=BLFi-YT2VewC&printsec=frontcover&dq=HIS+PROMISED+LAND:+THE+AUTOBIOGRAPHY+OF+JOHN+P.+PARKER,+FORMER+SLAVE+AND+CONDUCTOR+ON+THE+UNDERGROUND+RAILROAD&source=bl&ots=Jy1duILNyZ&sig=90_0FAR09wPZt3Dk83WSHQlT4og&hl=en&ei=2X5NTf_IGMP_lgfn6pXoDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=falseJohn P. Parker, HIS PROMISED LAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN P. PARKER, FORMER SLAVE AND CONDUCTOR ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD], Edited by Stuart Seely Sprague, New York: Norton, 1996
- Louis Weeks, "John P. Parker: Black Abolitionist Entrepreneur, 1827-1900", Ohio History 80(2) (Spring 1971): 155-162.
- Freedom River, Doreen Rappaport, NY: Hyperion Books for Children, 2000
External links
- "John P. Parker", African American Registry
- "John Parker Papers", Duke University
- "John Parker House in Ripley Ohio", Website