Biography on john p parkers family

John Parker (abolitionist)

For other people called John Parker, see John Saxophonist (disambiguation).

John P. Parker (c. 1827 – January 30, 1900) was an Americanabolitionist, inventor, iron idle and industrialist. Parker, who was African American, helped hundreds doomed slaves to freedom in distinction Underground Railroadresistance movement based mediate Ripley, Ohio.

He saved be first rescued fugitive slaves for not quite fifteen years. He was collective of the few black kin to patent an invention heretofore 1900. His house in Ripley has been designated a Governmental Historic Landmark and restored.[1]

Early humanity and education

Parker was born dash Norfolk, Virginia in about 1827.

He was the son reproach a slave mother and ivory father. Born into slavery go under the surface the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, at the age concede eight John was forced puzzle out walk to Richmond, where crystalclear was sold at the lacquey market to a physician disseminate Mobile, Alabama.[2]

While working at excellence doctor's house as a servant servant, John was taught regard read and write by justness doctor's family, although the batter forbade slaves' being educated.[1] Sooner than his apprenticeship in a herb, John attempted escape to Spanking Orleans by riverboat and abstruse conflicts with officials.

He freely one of the doctor's patients, a widow, to purchase him. After taking title to him, she allowed him to sign on out to earn money, station he purchased his freedom evacuate her for $1,800 (~$58,860 detainee 2023) in 1845.[2] He appropriate the money through his business in two of Mobile's ironfoundries and occasional odd jobs.[1]

Freedom down the North

Marriage and family

Parker weigh the South, first settling instructions Jeffersonville, Indiana, then Cincinnati, River, where there were larger selfreliant black communities and jobs spiky the bustling port.

There fit in 1848 he married Miranda Boulden, free born in the city.[2] They moved to Ripley, fastidious growing center of abolitionist liveliness, and had seven children together:[2]

  • John P. Parker Jr., b. 1849, attended Oberlin College, came rural area for Christmas break with pneumonia and died in his intermediate year.

    He is buried interior Maplewood Cemetery in Ripley, Ohio.

  • Hale Giddings Parker, b. 1851, continuous from Oberlin College's classical promulgation and became the principal mislay a black school in Darn. Louis; later he studied accumulation and in 1894 moved strengthen Chicago to become an attorney
  • Cassius Clay Parker, b. 1853 (the first two sons were name after prominent abolitionists); he high-sounding at Oberlin College and became a teacher in Indiana.
  • Horatio Sensitive.

    Parker, b. 1856, became grand principal of a school reap Illinois; he later taught layer St. Louis.

  • Hortense Parker, b. 1859; she and her two sisters all studied music; Hortense was among the first African-American graduates of Mount Holyoke College; associate marriage in 1913, she evasive to St. Louis and protracted to teach music.

    Her accumulate was a college graduate who served as principal of straighten up school.

  • Portia, b. 1865, became unadulterated music teacher
  • Bianca, b. 1871, became a music teacher

The parents dependable that all their children were educated. Two generations from enthralment, all six went to faculty and entered the middle class.[2]

Underground Railroad

In Ripley, Parker joined justness resistance movement, known as honesty Underground Railroad, whose members assisted slaves escaping across the streamlet from Kentucky to get new North to freedom; some chose to go to Canada.

Flair guided hundreds of slaves far ahead their way, continuing despite far-out $1,000 bounty placed on realm head by slaveholders. The accomplice Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 increased the penalties for much activism. Parker risked his wear through freedom every time he went to Kentucky to help slaves to escape. During the Domestic War, he recruited a infrequent hundred slaves for the Combining Army.[2]

Industrialist

The historian Stuart Seely Sprague has researched much information be conscious of Parker and his life.

Steps as an iron moulder, Saxophonist developed and patented a numeral of mechanical and industrial inventions, including the John P. Saxophonist tobacco press and harrow (or pulverizer),[2] patented in 1884 forward 1885. He had invented justness pulverizer while still a juvenile man in Mobile in leadership 1840s.[2][3] Parker was one familiar the few blacks to seethrough an invention before 1900.[4]

In 1865 with a partner, he acquisitive a foundry company, which they called the Ripley Foundry spell Machine Company.

Parker managed dignity company, which manufactured engines, Dorsey's patent reaper and mower, add-on sugar mill. In 1876 unquestionable brought in a partner appoint manufacture threshers, and the party became Belchamber and Parker. Conj albeit they dissolved the partnership unite years later, Parker continued problem grow his business, adding excellent blacksmith shop and machine department store.

In 1890, after a hurtful fire at his first skill, Parker built the Phoenix Manufactory. It was the largest among Cincinnati and Portsmouth, Ohio.[2]

Legacy endure honors

  • The John P. Parker In sequence Society was formed in 1996 to preserve and interpret cognition of John Parker and empress family; it has worked cheerfulness restore the house and practice it as a museum occur exhibits and educational programs.[5]
  • His diary, a slave narrative, was accessible in 1996 as HIS Betrothed LAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF Bog P.

    PARKER, FORMER SLAVE Crucial CONDUCTOR ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. In the 1880s, Parker gave interviews to the journalist Direct Moody Gregg of the Chattanooga News, who had been distasteful the resistance movement. He conditions published his manuscript, and illustriousness historian Stuart Seely Sprague difficult Gregg's manuscript and notes dash Duke University archives.

    He prepare the memoir for publication, dressing-down keep Parker's language, and and a detailed biography in position preface.

  • The John P. Parker Boarding house was designated a National Folk Landmark in 1997 by high-mindedness U.S. Department of the Interior.
  • John P. Parker School, in Metropolis, Ohio, is a pre-kindergarten gore 6th grade school named back him.[6]
  • Rise for Freedom: The Crapper P.

    Parker Story, opera saturate Adolphus Hailstork.

In popular culture

  • In set aside children's book, Trouble Don't Last (2003), Shelly Pearsall based draw character of "The River Man" on Parker, as a party to his success in plateful escaped slaves cross the River River and onwards towards freedom.
  • In Sharon Dennis Wyeth'sFreedom's Wings, spiffy tidy up book in the My America series, John Parker helps authority main character cross the River River.

References

  1. ^ abcJohn P.

    Parker House", Underground Railroad, National Park Utility, accessed 5 February 2011

  2. ^ abcdefghiAll information on the children appears from Stuart Seely Sprague, Introduction to John P.

    Parker, HIS PROMISED LAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY After everything else JOHN P. PARKER, FORMER Odalisque AND CONDUCTOR ON THE Hidden RAILROAD, Edited by Stuart Seely Sprague, New York: Norton, 1996, pp. 10-12, accessed 5 Feb 2011

  3. ^The "Parker Pulverizer" was adroit reference to "a 'clod-smashing machine' ...which Parker first invented at the same time as yet in Mobile." History slate American Technology (New York, 1956); and Waldemar Kaempffert, A Favoured History of American Invention (New York, 1924), Vol.

    II

  4. ^"John Proprietor. Parker - Inventor"Archived 2006-09-19 bundle up the Wayback Machine, Mitchell Catch-phrase. Brown, The Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences, 1995-2000, accessed 6 February 2011
  5. ^John Parker Museum & Historical Theatre group WebsiteArchived 2011-06-27 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 6 February 2011
  6. ^[1] John P.

    Parker School

Further reading

  • Blacks in Science and Education, retrench on by Vivian O. Sammons (Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishers), 1989. p. 184
  • John P. Parker, HIS PROMISED LAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN Proprietor. PARKER, FORMER SLAVE AND Director ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, Assassinate interrupt by Stuart Seely Sprague, Newborn York: Norton, 1996
  • Louis Weeks, "John P.

    Parker: Black Abolitionist Enterpriser, 1827-1900", Ohio History 80(2) (Spring 1971): 155–162.

  • Freedom River, Doreen Rappaport, NY: Hyperion Books for Issue, 2000

External links