LOUIS WEEKS
John P. Parker:
Black Abolitionist Entrepreneur,
1827-1900
As historians attempt to set the record
straight--to recite for Americans the involve-
ment of black people in all aspects of
our national life--they will, since the recovery
of his "Autobiography," now be
able to include more on the contributions of yet
another outstanding Negro, John P.
Parker of Ripley, Ohio.1
To be sure, a few students of American
history have already mentioned Parker.
Henry E. Baker of the United States Patent
Office included him in the study, "The
Negro in the Field of Invention,"
which appeared in the Journal of Negro History
in 1917. According to Baker, several
inventions by Parker resulted in the establish-
ment of the Ripley Foundry and Machinery
Company, a prosperous business:
He [Parker] obtained several patents on
his inventions, one being a "screw for Tobacco
Presses," patented in September,
1884, and another for a similar device patented in May,
1885. Mr. Parker set up shop in Ripley
for the manufacture of his presses, and the business
proved successful from the first. The
small shop grew into a large foundry where upwards
of 25 men were constantly employed. It
was owned and managed by Mr. Parker till his
death. The factory is still being
operated, and on the business lines originated by the founder,
but the ownership has passed from the
Parker family.2
Parker numbered among the few Negroes
who obtained patents in America
before 1900. Only fifty-five black
inventors held more than one patent in the year
1901, according to W. E. B. DuBois.
Moreover, Parker had obtained at least three,
perhaps more, of the seventy-seven
patents issued to Negroes before 1886. Despite
immense opposition, he proved himself
capable of inventing new machinery, carry-
ing through the patenting process, and
then capitalizing upon his ideas.3
While working in southern Ohio, John
Parker also found time to be an impor-
tant conductor on the Underground
Railroad. A specialized study, The Mysteries of
1. See Randolph C. Downes, "On Negro History," Ohio
History, LXXVIII (1969), 213-214, for one
call to recite participation by blacks
in the making of the state; "Autobiography by a slave, John Parker,
Brown County, Ohio, circa, 1880,"
Duke University Library.
2. Henry E. Baker; "The Negro in
the Field of Invention," Journal of Negro History, II (1917),
29-31. In 1871 the establishment was
known as the Phoenix Foundry with Parker and William Hood,
proprietors. Carl N. Thompson, comp., Historical
Collections of Brown County, Ohio (n.p., 1969), 162,
165, 167, 190.
Mr. Weeks is assistant professor of
Christian Thought and History at the Louisville Presbyterian
Theological Seminary.
156
OHIO HISTORY
Ohio's Underground Railroads, published in 1951, refers to Parker. The author,
Wilbur H. Siebert, however, carefully
separates Parker from the cluster of white
abolitionists who were operating in the
area of Ripley and Red Oaks under the
leadership of Rev. John Rankin, the
Presbyterian clergyman who founded the Free
Presbyterian Church. Parker's reason for
not working within Rankin's group, accord-
ing to Siebert, was not that the Negro
felt animosity toward the white workers,
but that he simply did not "think
it proper to ask white men how to abduct slaves
from Kentucky." Even though Parker
Knew the dangers and difficulties in
liberating slaves,... he had no hesitation about abduct-
ing them. He was in secret communication
with intending runaways, sending his associates
to meet them at night and conduct them
to rowboats which would carry them across. He
also provided guides to escort them to
havens up the road. Ripley abolitionists followed John
Parker's leadership not infrequently in
their hazardous enterprises.
By way of summary, Siebert stated that
Parker "was a large and shrewd man of
impressive appearance." True to his
usual penchant for statistics, the historian
added that according to W. [B.]
Campbell, a veteran of the Underground Railroad
in Ripley, the Negro abolitionist was
'the direct means of plucking over 1,000 slaves
from bondage.'4
As a young professor at Ohio State
University, Siebert had visited Ripley in
1892. He later claimed that all his
statements concerning the community could be
verified by Captain Richard C. Rankin,
son of Rev. John Rankin his "best inform-
ant."5 Henry Howe, a
contemporary but much older historian, also used Rankin as
an informant and quoted in the 1900
edition of Historical Collections in Ohio,
Rankin's independent testimony to the
effectiveness of Parker's militant abolition-
ism. Not giving a specific date, Rankin
remembered being sent by his father to
interfere with the designs of three
slave hunters. In the attempt, Rankin recognized
one of the three men as 'a desperate
character, who had killed one man at Hamilton,
Ohio, and had waylaid and shot another
near his home in Kentucky.' Even so, the
youth drew and held a revolver 'within
three inches of his eyes,' but another Ken-
tuckian likewise aimed his six-shooter
at Rankin. It was Parker who resolved this
dramatic standoff. According to Rankin,
In this position we were found by John
P. Parker, a colored citizen of Ripley, who came
in soon after with a double-barrelled
shot gun. In a short time a crowd gathered, and the
3. W. E. B. DuBois, ed., "The Negro
Artisan," Report of a Social Study
Made Under the Direction
of Atlanta University; Together with
the Proceedings of the Seventh Conference for the Study of Negro
Problems, held in Atlanta University,
on May 27, 1902 (Atlanta, 1902),
187-188. According to several
reports from Ripley, Parker also
produced a "Parker Pulverizer," a type of harrow for which he held
at least one patent. Confirmation of
this statement is hard to obtain since the United States Patent
Office states that patents granted in
the nineteenth century are almost impossible to determine by name.
Baker in "The Negro in the Field of
Invention" names several of the difficulties which confronted
slaves and freemen in their attempts to
secure patents during the 1900's.
4. Wilbur H. Siebert, The Mysteries
of Ohio's Underground Railroads (Columbus, 1951), 77-78. The
Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, February
18, 1900, published a special feature on the Underground
Railroad in southern Ohio honoring
prominent conductors, and John Parker's recent death is especially
noted. The facts related by Siebert
about Parker seem to have been obtained from this article and were
given by W. B. (Barney) Campbell, not W.
R. Campbell, as stated in the text. (W. N. Campbell was
Senator Alexander Campbell's son.) The
discrepancies between Siebert's account and Parker's "Auto-
biography" lead to the conclusion
that Siebert did not interview John Parker on April 5, 1892, as he
claims in his book. Basic discrepancies
include the state where he was a slave and the amount of
money necessary for purchase of his
freedom.
5. Siebert, Mysteries, 68.
John P. Parker
157
"hunters" were taken before
the mayor and fined sixty dollars and costs.6
Yet another work, a local history, makes
more than a passing reference to Parker.
Ripley, Ohio: Its History and
Families, compiled by the
Sesquicentennial Committee
of that community in 1965, recites with
some perception Parker's place among abo-
litionists and entrepreneurs. Besides
including a brief sketch of the man's life, this
study declares that no one in Ripley's
antebellum days "was more prominently
identified with the prosperity of the
town than John Parker."7
General histories, whether of American
Negroes, inventors, or even of the Under-
ground Railroad, however, have usually omitted
references to Parker, despite the
fact that knowledge of his contributions
could readily have been obtained. Fortu-
nately, the work of the redoubtable
Carter G. Woodson proves an exception to the
general rule. Woodson drew heavily upon
specialized materials, particular fields,
locations, and professions. He cited
Parker's inventions among the "Achievements
in Freedom" that have proved
important in history in his classic, The Negro In Our
History.8
On the other hand, Wilbur Siebert, who
asserted that his visit to Ripley took
place in 1892, did not even mention
Parker when he published his first general
work, The Underground Railroad from
Slavery to Freedom, in 1898, only six years
later. Parker is excluded from
discussion in the text as well as from the Appendix,
which professed to list all the
operators known in Brown County. Also, since he
later, in 1951, termed Parker
"Ripley's Chief Negro Operator," one would expect
the names of other black men in
Siebert's directory of participants in that area.
Instead, no Negroes are identified among
the operators in Brown County, while
John Rankin and his sons along with
sixty-eight other whites are named.9
The early neglect of Parker by Siebert
is serious from a historical point of view,
as his study glorifies white
participation in the Underground Railroad to the exclu-
sion of blacks, even though some of them
were still living when he wrote and could
have been interviewed. Moreover, it
seems surprising that such valuable works on
Negro history as Black Odyssey by
Roi Ottley, Their Own Words by Milton Meltzer,
Documentary History of the Negro
People in the United States by Herbert
Aptheker,
The Lonesome Road by Saunders Redding, and Charles H. Wesley's studies in
black history--all appear uniformly to
ignore Parker's life and his work.10
6. Henry Howe, Historical Collections
of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1900), I, 339.
7. Sesquicentennial Committee, comp., Ripley,
Ohio; Its History and Families (n.p., 1965), 26, 28,
36, 37, 67, 69, 92.
8. Carter G. Woodson, The Negro in
Our History (Washington, 1947), 464. Perhaps a typographical
error, "T." instead of
"P." appears as Parker's middle initial.
9. Wilbur H. Siebert, The Underground
Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (New York, 1898), 417;
Siebert, Mysteries, 77-78. W. B.
Campbell, Siebert's apparent source, was a veteran of the Underground
Railroad who had worked with John Rankin
and Parker. His description of Parker's relationship to
the other conductors was: "He
[Parker] was often a leader of the whites in perilous rescue work, and
was always carrying on an independent
campaign for his race.... A more fearless creature never
lived . . . I doubt whether any one
negro ever deserved more gratitude from his race." (Italics added.)
Commercial Tribune, February 18, 1900.
10. Roi Ottley, Black Odyssey (New
York, 1948), Milton Meltzer, ed., Their Own Words (New
York, 1964), Herbert Aptheker, Documentary
History of the Negro People in the United States (New
York, 1951), Saunders Redding, The
Lonesome Road (Garden City, 1958), Charles H. Wesley, In Free-
dom's Footsteps and The Quest for Equality (New York, 1968). The
three volume work, The Negro in
American History (New York, 1969) and two recent accounts of the
Underground Railroad, William
Breyfogle, Make Free: The Story of
the Underground Railroad (Philadelphia, 1958) and Henrietta Buck-
master, Flight to Freedom (New
York, 1958), make extensive reference to John Rankin and his sons
but ignore John Parker altogether.
158
OHIO HISTORY
Most of the claims made on Parker's
behalf that are published in the various
works already referred to are
corroborated in the aforementioned recently uncov-
ered manuscript. The "Autobiography
by a slave, John Parker, Brown County,
Ohio, circa 1880," is a
typescript of approximately ninety pages, in the Flowers
Collection of Southern Americana at the
Duke University Library. It holds interest
for a wide range of persons who study
Ohio history, the Underground Railroad,
and the nascent black capitalism of
nineteenth-century America, not to mention
those whose interests encompass all of
black history as well as American slave nar-
ratives. John Parker lived his first
eighteen years as a slave, and his story recounts
these years in a manner similar to that
found in published narratives between 1840
and 1860.11
In brief, Parker's life was a full
one.12 Born in 1827 in Norfolk, Virginia, Parker
was the child of a slave mother and a
white father. At age eight, his master, who
may have been his father, sold him to an
agent, who removed the boy to Richmond
for resale. When he was sold the second
time, Parker joined a large slave caravan
heading for Alabama. After traveling all
the way to Mobile, destination of the cara-
van, Parker was purchased by a doctor
for use in his personal household. Members
of his owner's family taught Parker to
read and to write, and by age sixteen the
youth was ordered to accompany two young
men of the family northward in order
to serve them while they attended
college. Parker was soon returned to Mobile,
however, for his owner feared the slave
would escape to the North.
The Mobile doctor then apprenticed
Parker to a succession of craftsmen. The
plasterer to whom he was first obligated
"began abusing" the young man from
the very first. "Being apt and
observing, I soon could do rough jobs," Parker re-
counted; but the white master assigned
his apprentice a task beyond his training.
The plasterer, seeing Parker's amateur
work, "flew into a rage" and beat the young
man "with a lathe with a nail in
it." Hospitalized by his wounds, Parker then defied
a white attendant and fled Mobile.
The escaping slave made his way to New
Orleans aboard a steamer, managed
to elude authorities in that city, and
stowed away in the empty hold of a north-
bound riverboat. When he ventured above
deck in search of food, Parker was dis-
covered and captured. After a series of
misadventures, during which he fell into the
hands of several persons on the
Mississippi, he was finally returned to New Orleans
for resale. The Mobile doctor then
succeeded in regaining his elusive slave and
took him back to Alabama.
Once again in Mobile, Parker was
apprenticed, this time to a molder at a local
foundry. "It was a natural bent, so
I went at it with a will, so that I was soon a
full-fledged molder," Parker
recalled, adding:
Being of an inventive turn of mind . . .
I soon rigged up my bench so I could do more
11. Investigation revealed that the
Parker manuscript was purchased at the same time as a longer
"Autobiography of John
Rankin," and acquisition of the materials was noted in June 1939.
"Auto-
biography of a slave, John Parker, Brown
County, Ohio, circa 1880," the catalog entry for the Parker
story, was made in 1945, too late for
inclusion in the Guide to the Manuscript Collections in the Duke
University Library, prepared by N. M.
Tilley and N. L. Goodwin (Durham, 1947).
See Charles H. Nichols, Many Thousand Gone (Leiden,
1963) for one clear description of the genre.
Cf. Margaret Young Jackson, "An Investigation of
Biographies and Autobiographies of American
Slaves Published Between 1840 and 1860,
Based upon the Cornell Special Slavery Collection" (unpub-
lished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell
University, 1954). Although the recollections of Parker do not fall
totally within the scope of slave narratives,
many of the devices and illustrations are similar.
12. The following data, and the
quotations as well, are taken directly from the Duke manuscript,
which follows the life of John Parker
until the outbreak of the Civil War.
John P. Parker 159
and better work than any man in the
shop. This fact naturally caused some ill-feeling
among the other workmen toward me. My
master gave me what I made, so I very fool-
ishly spent my money on myself. I
remember I paid twenty dollars for a hat.
Parker's extravagance contributed to his
mounting problems-- a fight with his
foreman and the promise of more trouble
if he stayed in Mobile. The doctor then
sent his slave to work in a foundry in
New Orleans, but there he shamed the other
workmen by his prodigious efforts, and
soon their hostility brought about his dis-
missal. Faced with the prospect of being
sold as a field hand, he became desperate.
The young man asked one of his master's
patients, a Mrs. Ryder, to assume
ownership and to allow him to purchase
his freedom. After some time and at the
last moment, she agreed to buy Parker
and to let him earn his freedom by paying
$1800 from the pay he could receive as a
molder. Motivated by the hope of free-
dom, he went to work in a different
foundry in Mobile and loaded boats in his
spare time, fulfilling his obligation to
Mrs. Ryder in less than two years' time.
Having heard of foundries at
Jeffersonville and New Albany, Parker asked for
a pass to Indiana. But, as he
remembered, "Cincinnati lured me away to other
adventures." It was in Cincinnati
that the newcomer received his first invitation to
assist escaping slaves:
My first real experience with the
runaways was in a manner unsought by me, in fact I was
unwillingly forced into it. I had met a
free man, who was a barber, in the house where I
was living. He told me that he had lived
in Maysville, Kentucky, and was under suspicion
of having helped runaways. He was given
one night to be gone, so he took the first packet
to Cincinnati, leaving his wife to pack
up their belongings. The man confided in me that
several nights before he was forced to
get out of town [he] met two girls in the act of run-
ning away. Knowing they had a good home
and a kindly mistress, besides being young,
he persuaded the girls to go back home
and stay there. Now that he had been treated so
brutally [in Maysville], he had made up
his mind to run the girls away and proposed I
accompany him back to Maysville to aid
in the enterprise.
The persistence of the barber finally
persuaded Parker to assist in the endeavor,
and Parker's vocation in assisting
escapees followed from this occasion. Soon he
moved to Ripley, and, according to the
introduction to his story, "entered into one
of the most adventurous careers of any
slaverunner along the entire border." The
introduction continues:
He devoted his life to forays in
Kentucky, to scouting on both sides of the Ohio River, to
taking care of the helpless slaves who
had found their way to the Ohio and could not get
across, to actual fighting for them and
against their pursuing masters. Owing to the stringent
antislavery laws and the fugitive slave
law, Parker never was able to tell of his adventures.
He had built up a profitable iron
foundry business. He had patented a clod-smashing ma-
chine which came into use. All of his
property would have been confiscated and he would
have been jailed, had the slave owners
been able to catch him.13
This introduction, and the entire
"Autobiography" of Parker, also, resulted from
13. The reference to a
"clod-smashing machine," repeated in the course of the story, was to
a
harrow which Parker first invented while
yet in Mobile. A detailed description of Parker's invention
is not provided; but if it improved on
the spike-toothed harrow, in general use until after 1865, then
it was indeed an important contribution.
Gage's disk harrow was not patented until 1847. See History
of American Technology (New York, 1956) and Waldemar Kaempffert, A Popular
History of American
Invention (New York, 1924), Vol. II.
160
OHIO HISTORY
the work of Frank M. Gregg, an Ohio
newspaperman and businessman who lived
his early life in Ripley.14 As a boy,
Gregg had known Parker as the "man who was
afraid to walk on the sidewalks."
Gregg had also known the reason for Parker's
preference for streets to sidewalks:
"Ripley was an old town with many narrow
alleys, out of which enemies could leap
at him unawares," and Parker had
established his habits "when there
was a reward on his head dead or alive." The
newspaperman was careful to assert that
courage, not fear, marked his subject's
personality. "A courageous man,
even in his old age he was quick with his fists,
a knife, or a pistol."
At the outset, Gregg set forth his
relationship to the story of John Parker, and
did not claim to have functioned merely
as an amanuensis. He admits the story is
based on the notes he compiled through
an all-night talk session with Parker and
is not a strictly verbatim account. In
explanation of why he decided to write the
story, Gregg says of Parker:
He was a man who rarely talked, never
bragged. Having made some reputation as a news-
paperman, I returned to my old hometown,
just to talk to John Parker. I knew he had had
a life of adventure, but I never
imagined such an interesting one as he unfolded to me and
my banker friend, Frank A. Stivers, an
old friend of Parker's and the leading banker of
Ripley.
The good will and essential faithfulness
of Gregg to his notes cannot seriously
be doubted. In the course of his
newspaper career, he would write other works.
His two volume history of The
Founding of a Nation, while participating in several
of the misconceptions in his day
concerning the Puritans and the Pilgrims, never-
theless evidences a competence in
discerning fact from fiction. Again, his brief study
of Andrews Raiders or the Last Scenes
and the Final Chapter of the Daring Incur-
sion into the Heart of the
Confederacy exhibits no genius for
insight, but contains
an adequate grasp of event and detail.
The style of both these works, as the writing
in his other publication, The Voice
of the Nation, and Other Verse, however, differs
radically from the narrative of Parker's
story, possibly indicating Gregg's heavy
reliance on Parker's own words and
style, and one wonders if this might not be the
reason why the manuscript has never been
published.15 More important than any
inductive arguments concerning Gregg's
fidelity to Parker's "Autobiography" or
lack of a publisher are the
corroborating testimonies of the truthfulness of the facts
from independent sources. Both Henry
Howe and W. B. Campbell confirm signifi-
cant details of Parker's personality and
work.
As for the general content of Gregg's
manuscript, unlike Solomon Northup's
Twelve Years A Slave, the account does not contain reams of historical data.16
Its
14. Frank M.Gregg (1864-1937), according
to the New York Herald Tribune, January 7, 1937, was
"a student of American History of
the Colonial period and the Civil War." Furthermore, Gregg "pur-
chased the original site of the Common
House of Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and on it con-
structed a reproduction of the original
building." He also "erected a monument at Ripley in honor of
the Abolitionists of the Virginia
Military District from Ohio." Another Gregg manuscript, graciously
provided for my reading by Mrs. Eliese
Bambach Stivers and Miss Florence Baird, was the chief source
for Ripley, Ohio (chairman of the
Sesquicentennial Committee was Mrs. Stivers), and for the items
concerning Parker in that work.
15. Frank M. Gregg, The Founding of a
Nation, 2 vols. (Cleveland, 1915); Gregg, Andrews Raiders,
or the Last Scenes and the Final
Chapter of the Daring Incursion into the Heart of the Confederacy
(Chattanooga, 1891); Gregg, The Voice
of the Nation, and Other Verse (New York, 1918).
16. Solomon Northup, Twelve Years A
Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup (Baton Rouge, 1968).
John P. Parker 161
purpose was not to validate claims of
kidnapping and rescue, as Northup succeeded
in doing. Rather, Gregg allows Parker
simply to remember, albeit in colorful lan-
guage, his own youth and manhood. The
black man's concern, looking back over
his early life and recalling events of
fifty years past, was more with meaning than
with petty detail. The first half is
concerned with slavery, the last half with attempts
to free slaves, his wife and family life
are only mentioned in passing, and the later
years in Ripley are included in another
manuscript by Gregg.
Significantly, the figure of John Parker
emerges from the pages of the manu-
script as a distinctly personal, fully
believable character. The mind at work appears
to be that of a proud black man. He
tricks the whites; finds black comrades; re-
members personal incidents; respects,
but maintains distance from, the white forces
of abolition in Ohio. At the same time,
Parker learns, sees, smells, feels, desires,
gets tricked, shows courage, and laughs.
His vocabulary is limited, but is full of
vital expression. In sum, the
"Autobiography" seems to reflect Parker directly with
a minimum of editorial interference.
For his part, John Parker was no
Frederick Douglass, intending by the writing
of his memoirs "to vindicate a just
and beneficent principle . . . to enlighten the
public mind, by revealing the true
nature, character, tendency of the slave system."
Neither was Parker writing for some
evangelical reason, or to obtain funds for
the emancipation of his family.17 Instead,
he was telling his story because someone
asked him to, or because he loved to
reminisce to listening and appreciative ears,
or perhaps as a gesture of friendship to
his fellow townsmen.
If Parker was no Douglass, recounting
his story that others might be freed, he
was even less a Scott Bond, telling the
history of his modest success as though all
men should imitate him.18 Bond
sponsored the publication of his biography to
serve as a model for the social
betterment and capitalistic involvement of other
Negroes. Parker, on the other hand,
passed along remarks of his creativity and
his financial prowess as occasional
asides, as anecdotes in the course of his narra-
tive of more exciting dimensions. The
"Autobiography" does recount lessons Parker
received along the way; but more than
that, it reveals his own self-image.
Whatever Parker was not, however, pales
in comparison to what he was. He
was a slave who overcame the institution
of chattel slavery. He was likewise an
important, yet unheralded, participant
in the Underground Railroad. He was,
against all odds, a successful inventor
and businessman in the southernmost regions
of Ohio. He functioned for many years as
an independent, militant black man
in an essentially white power structure
of trade and finance.
To Parker, the facts of accomplishment
are secondary to his emotional experi-
ences and pride in himself and his work.
He tells what it meant to him to be a
slave. The implications of defying the
caste system, he described also. Even with
the twentieth-century emphasis on
writing history from the workers' point of view,
even with the immense records compiled
by the interviewers of former slaves, all
too little is known of their attitudes
and actions. Parker's recollections provide a
17. Frederick Douglass, My Bondage
and My Freedom (New York, 1855), vi-vii. Cf. narratives by
James W. Pennington, William W. Brown
and Jacob Stroyer, who wrote to evangelize, and by Luns-
ford Lane and Moses Grandy, who wrote
for money for freedom. Five Slave Narratives: A Compendium
(New York, 1968), recounts the essence
of each narrative except Lane's, which first appeared as Narra-
tive of the Early Life, Redemption
from Slavery and Banishment, by
Lunsford Lane (Boston, 1842).
18. Dan A. Rudd and Theophilus Bond, From
Slavery to Wealth, The Life of Scott Bond, The
Rewards of Honesty, Industry, Economy
and Perseverance (Madison, Ark.,
1917).
162 OHIO
HISTORY
necessary corrective to all who claim
the near-total submission of slaves to the
institution.19
In defiance of the slave codes, Parker
received a rudimentary education and
had access to numerous works of
literature and history. Thus, while he was still
subjected to the inhumanity of slavery
in the United States, he could compare
the life he endured with the lives of
other persons in other cultures. In addition,
he was able to articulate his memories
and hopes in a manner seldom possible
for the normally illiterate slaves, and
as a skilled laborer he enjoyed a mobility
within the system not usually afforded
slaves--even those in the cities of the ante-
bellum South.20 Significantly, Parker
bought his own freedom. This possibility for
freedom which he exploited, as did
thousands of others, has not received adequate
attention by researchers. And as soon as
he was freed, he assisted in the actual
liberation of other slaves. His unrecognized
work on the Underground Railroad
bears out the current thesis that white
participation in the movement has been
exaggerated while black involvement has
been generally overlooked.21 Parker's
willingness to risk his life and
property in freeing his brothers and sisters in bond-
age appears terribly courageous, almost
foolhardy, in light of his own vocation
and interests; but he does not wish to
appear as doing anything different from
the vast majority of ex-slaves on the
borderlands who cooperated in the enterprise.
In the face of massive inequities of
Ohio's legal and social regulations, John
Parker managed to establish himself as a
reputable businessman and prominent
citizen of Ripley.22 It is
hoped that the "Autobiography" will be used to help set
the record straight regarding the role
of blacks in the abolition movement in
southern Ohio as well as give credit
where credit is due for Parker's role in the
economic life of Ripley, Ohio.
19. An example is B. A. Botkin, ed., Lay
My Burden Down (Chicago, 1945), Introduction. More
recently the same sentiments have
appeared in the course of the discussion concerning Nat Turner's
revolt.
20. Richard C. Wade, Slavery in the
Cities; The South, 1820-1860 (New York, 1964) does assert
the mobility of urban slaves.
21. Larry Gara, The Liberty Line: The
Legend of the Underground Railroad (Lexington, 1961), has
expanded on the general impressions
given by an earlier work of Benjamin Drew, The Refugee; A
Northside View of Slavery (Boston, 1856), among others.
22. See Leon Litwack, North of
Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago, 1961)
for one account of their treatment.
LOUIS WEEKS
John P. Parker:
Black Abolitionist Entrepreneur,
1827-1900
As historians attempt to set the record
straight--to recite for Americans the involve-
ment of black people in all aspects of
our national life--they will, since the recovery
of his "Autobiography," now be
able to include more on the contributions of yet
another outstanding Negro, John P.
Parker of Ripley, Ohio.1
To be sure, a few students of American
history have already mentioned Parker.
Henry E. Baker of the United States Patent
Office included him in the study, "The
Negro in the Field of Invention,"
which appeared in the Journal of Negro History
in 1917. According to Baker, several
inventions by Parker resulted in the establish-
ment of the Ripley Foundry and Machinery
Company, a prosperous business:
He [Parker] obtained several patents on
his inventions, one being a "screw for Tobacco
Presses," patented in September,
1884, and another for a similar device patented in May,
1885. Mr. Parker set up shop in Ripley
for the manufacture of his presses, and the business
proved successful from the first. The
small shop grew into a large foundry where upwards
of 25 men were constantly employed. It
was owned and managed by Mr. Parker till his
death. The factory is still being
operated, and on the business lines originated by the founder,
but the ownership has passed from the
Parker family.2
Parker numbered among the few Negroes
who obtained patents in America
before 1900. Only fifty-five black
inventors held more than one patent in the year
1901, according to W. E. B. DuBois.
Moreover, Parker had obtained at least three,
perhaps more, of the seventy-seven
patents issued to Negroes before 1886. Despite
immense opposition, he proved himself
capable of inventing new machinery, carry-
ing through the patenting process, and
then capitalizing upon his ideas.3
While working in southern Ohio, John
Parker also found time to be an impor-
tant conductor on the Underground
Railroad. A specialized study, The Mysteries of
1. See Randolph C. Downes, "On Negro History," Ohio
History, LXXVIII (1969), 213-214, for one
call to recite participation by blacks
in the making of the state; "Autobiography by a slave, John Parker,
Brown County, Ohio, circa, 1880,"
Duke University Library.
2. Henry E. Baker; "The Negro in
the Field of Invention," Journal of Negro History, II (1917),
29-31. In 1871 the establishment was
known as the Phoenix Foundry with Parker and William Hood,
proprietors. Carl N. Thompson, comp., Historical
Collections of Brown County, Ohio (n.p., 1969), 162,
165, 167, 190.
Mr. Weeks is assistant professor of
Christian Thought and History at the Louisville Presbyterian
Theological Seminary.