John Parker Buys Freedom

People

John Parker (subject); Reverend John Rankin (abolitionist); Frank Moody Gregg (journalist); Stuart Seely Sprague (historian)

Outcome

Parker helped between 440 and over 900 enslaved people escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad; built a successful career as a foundry owner and inventor; his home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997

John Parker was born into slavery in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1827. At the age of eight, he was sold and forced to march in a chain gang from Virginia to Mobile, Alabama. There he was purchased by a physician who permitted him to learn to read and to work in local iron foundries, skills that would shape the rest of his life. By 1845, at the age of 18, Parker had saved enough money to purchase his own freedom for $1,800. He settled in Ripley, Ohio, a small town perched on the north bank of the Ohio River directly across from Kentucky slave territory. Ripley was one of the most active stations on the Underground Railroad, and Parker would become one of its most daring conductors. Over the following years, Parker built a successful life as a businessman and inventor. He established the Parker Foundry, becoming one of the few Black foundry owners in the antebellum United States. He obtained patents on his inventions, including a tobacco screw press. But it was his secret life that defined his legacy. Under cover of darkness, Parker repeatedly crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky to personally lead enslaved people to freedom. Armed with pistols and a knife, he ventured into slave territory knowing that Kentucky slaveholders had placed a $1,000 bounty on his head. He worked alongside the Reverend John Rankin, a Presbyterian minister whose hilltop home on Liberty Hill in Ripley served as a key station on the Underground Railroad. Over the course of his activities, Parker helped between 440 and over 900 people escape from slavery. During the Civil War, Parker recruited Black soldiers for the 27th Regiment United States Colored Troops. After the war, he continued operating his foundry in Ripley. Around 1885, Parker dictated his autobiography to journalist Frank Moody Gregg, but the manuscript was lost for over a century and not published until 1996, when historian Stuart Seely Sprague edited and released it under the title "His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground Railroad." Parker died on January 30, 1900, in Ripley, Ohio. In 1997, the John Parker House in Ripley was designated a National Historic Landmark, recognizing his extraordinary contributions to the fight against slavery.