Submitted by Henry Robert Burke

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John Parker
by
Henry Robert Burke

I have been selected to receive the John Parker Underground Railroad Researcher Award, to be presented at the University of Miami, in Miami, Florida, at an Underground Railroad Conference beginning January 29, 2004, sponsored by the United States Park Service’s Trails to Freedom Program and The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. I think it is of interest to tell a little about John Parker.

John Parker was a black Abolitionist who once lived along the Ohio River in Ripley, Ohio. Ripley, was a very prominent Underground Railroad crossing station during the period before the Civil War. So prominent in fact is Ripley’s Underground Railroad history, that its sheer volume eclipses that of any other community along the Ohio River. John Parker, fitted in with the abolitionist in Ripley like and old shoe. Of course Cleveland, on Lake Erie had the largest volume of fugitive slaves simply because it was a converging point for the crossing to Canada.

John Parker kept a diary where he counted up to 900 fugitive slaves that he personally helped cross the Ohio River from Kentucky and put them on the Underground Railroad bound for Lake Erie and freedom in Canada.

John Parker was born in Norwalk, Virginia, in 1827. He was only eight years old when he was sold and taken to Richmond, Virginia. In Richmond he was chained to an old man, who was later whipped to death. That experience set the child’s mind on fire with a desire to gain his freedom. Just four months later, he was chained to a gang of some 400 slaves. According to Parker’s own story, he walked to the end of the slave trail at Mobile, Alabama where he was sold to a slave owner who rented his slaves.

When Parker was 14, he was leased out to a widow in Mobile named Mrs. Ryder who employed him as a workman in an iron foundry. He entered into a contract with this lady to buy his freedom for $1,800, with the promise that he would pay her back on a weekly installment plan of $10 per week plus interest. By the way, John Parker made himself so disagreeable to his old master, that the master was happy to get rid of Parker at any price. By 1845 John Parker paid off Mrs. Ryder and gained his freedom.

At the age 18, Parker was free and anxious to go north. He met a free black man from New Orleans who told him of iron foundries that were in New Albany, Indiana, so he headed from Mobile, Alabama to New Albany, Indiana. He stayed in New Albany for only a short time, then when went to Cincinnati, before moving on to Ripley, Ohio, which is about 50 mile up the Ohio River from Cincinnati. In Ripley he entered into one of the most adventurous careers of any slave runner in the history of the Underground Railroad Movement.

John Parker devoted his life during the rest of the slavery period to conducting forays in Kentucky, scouting on both sides of the Ohio River. He sought out and cared for fugitive slaves who found their way to the Ohio River, but could not get across. Parker physically fought for them against their pursuing masters and bounty hunters. Because of penalties that could be imposed under the fugitive slave law, Parker wisely kept his adventures as secret as possible. He had built a profitable iron foundry business in Ripley and had patented a clod smashing machine which became widely used. If convicted of violating the Fugitive Slave Law, all of his property would have been confiscated and he would have been jailed. Therefore it behooved Parker to move with caution and silence, but the dangers did not hold him back. Almost nightly he was on the prowl along the Ohio River, looking for desperate fugitive slaves who needed assistance.

John Parker found kindred spirits in a group of white men, all Scotch Presbyterians, who had devoted their lives and property toward aiding and abetting the runaway slaves. The most prominent of these were Dr. Alexander Campbell and Reverend John Rankin. The famous escape of the slave girl Eliza, immortalized by author Harriet Beecher Stowe in her book UNCLE TOM’S CABIN, took place at Ripley.

The book, HIS PROMISED LAND: The Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground Railroad can be purchased at Sugden’s Bookstore and Mother O’Reily’s Bookstore in Marietta, Ohio.