John Parker

John P. Parker (c. 1827 – January 30, 1900) was an American abolitionist, inventor, iron moulder and industrialist. Parker, who was half African American, helped hundreds of slaves to freedom in the Underground Railroad resistance movement based in Ripley, Ohio. He saved and rescued fugitive slaves for nearly fifteen years. He was one of the few black people to patent an invention before 1900. His house in Ripley has been designated a National Historic Landmark and restored.

Early life and education Parker was born in Norfolk, Virginia in about 1827. He was the son of a slave mother and white father. Born into slavery under the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, at the age of eight John was forced to walk to Richmond, where he was sold at the slave market to a physician from Mobile, Alabama. John P. Parker Jr., b. 1849, attended Oberlin College, came home for Christmas break with pneumonia and died in his sophomore year. He is buried in Maplewood Cemetery in Ripley, Ohio. Hale Giddings Parker, b. 1851, graduated from Oberlin College'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 Parker, b. 1859; she and her two sisters all studied music; Hortense was among the first African-American graduates of Mount Holyoke College; 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. Parker was one of the few Black Americans to patent an invention before 1900.

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 grow his business, adding a blacksmith shop and machine shop. In 1890, after a destructive fire at his first facility, Parker built the Phoenix Foundry. It was the largest between Cincinnati and Portsmouth, Ohio. His autobiography, a slave narrative, 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 University archives. He edited the memoir for publication, to keep Parker's language, and added a detailed biography in the preface. The John P. Parker House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997 by the U.S. Department of the Interior. John P. Parker School, in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a pre-kindergarten through 6th grade school named after him. Rise for Freedom: The John P. Parker Story, opera by Adolphus Hailstork.

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 a tribute to his success in helping escaped slaves cross the Ohio River and onwards towards freedom. In Sharon Dennis Wyeth's Freedom's Wings, a book in the My America series, John Parker helps the main character cross the Ohio River.