"John P.Parker."(February 2,1827-January 30,1900)

From Norfolk Virginia he was the son of a white daddy & a slave mama.He was sold to a slave agent from Richmond, Virginia at age

eight,who then sold him to a slave caravan that took him to Mobile,Alabama.In Mobile,he was purchased by a doctor who employed him as a house servant where he was taught to read and write.In 1843 Sixteen-year-old John John accompanied the doctor's sons north to attend college;John was returned to Mobile when the owner feared he would escape to the north.There he was apprenticed to a foundry and iron manufacturer and learned the trade of plastering.After attempting to escape he was returned to the doctor.While in Alabama John's skill as a molder maker caused ill will with his fellow workers and he was transferred to a New Orleans foundry where he alienated his co-workers and was released.Fearing that he would become a field hand,John worked for two years at a foundry and at the New Orleans shipping docks as a stevedore.He purchased his freedom from his earnings;the price of freedom for John in 1845 was $1800.That year John obtained a pass to travel north Indiana,where he was offered work in the foundries near Albany or Jefferson,Indiana,near Cincinnati,John began his career a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad.Working with a local barber,John was once able to move two young girls from Kentucky to scouting on both sides of the Ohio River to taking care of the helpless slaves who had found their way to Ohio and could not get across,to actually fighting for them against their pursuing masters.Around 1848 John left Cincinnati and opened a small general store in Beachwood Ohio.In 1850 he moved to Ripley,Ohio,which was the home Rev.John Rankin,abolitionist and operator of the Underground Railroad there.John Parker worked independently of Rev.John and before the Emancipation Proclamation took an active role in removing an estimated 1000 slaves from bondage.Unlike other abolitionists John remained separate from organized church groups,which he viewed as as an "enemy of the people."In 1854 he built a small foundry near Ripley,Ohio,which expanded and at its peak employed up to twenty-five men.Following federal approval of Colored troops for Union service,in 1863,he became a recruiter for the 27th Regiment,U.S. colored Troops (one of two Ohio units).John's foundry also furnished castings to the war effort.His business,was known as the Ripley Foundry & Machine Company,manufactured slide valve engines and reapers.In 1871 an establishment known at the Phoenix Foundry with John P.Parker and William Hood,proprietors,was listened in the records of Brown County,Ohio.The foundry was still operating in 1981,though no longer under family ownership.John remained in the foundry business until his death.