**[1. NAME OF PROPERTY]{.underline}**

Historic Name: **PARKER, JOHN P., HOUSE**

Other Name/Site Number: BRO-56-17

**[2. LOCATION]{.underline}**

Street & Number: 300 Front Street Not for publication: N/A

City/Town: Ripley Vicinity:\_\_\_

State: Ohio County: Brown Code: 015 Zip Code: 45167

**[3. CLASSIFICATION]{.underline}**

Ownership of Property Category of Property

Private: [X]{.underline} Building(s): [X]{.underline}

Public-Local: \_\_\_\_ District: \_\_\_\_

Public-State: \_\_\_\_ Site: \_\_\_\_

Public-Federal: \_\_\_\_ Structure: \_\_\_\_

> Object: \_\_\_\_

Number of Resources within Property

Contributing Noncontributing

[1]{.underline} [1]{.underline} buildings

\_\_\_\_ \_\_\_\_ sites

\_\_\_\_ \_\_\_\_ structures

\_\_\_\_ \_\_\_\_ objects

[1 1]{.underline} Total

Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National
Register: 1

Name of Related Multiple Property Listing: N/A

**[4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION]{.underline}**

As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act
of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this \_\_\_\_ nomination
\_\_\_\_ request for determination of eligibility meets the
documentation standards for registering properties in the National
Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional
requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property
\_\_\_\_ meets \_\_\_\_ does not meet the National Register Criteria.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Signature of Certifying Official Date

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

State or Federal Agency and Bureau

In my opinion, the property \_\_\_\_ meets \_\_\_\_ does not meet the
National Register criteria.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Signature of Commenting or Other Official Date

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State or Federal Agency and Bureau

**[5. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CERTIFICATION]{.underline}**

I hereby certify that this property is:

\_\_\_\_ Entered in the National Register

\_\_\_\_ Determined eligible for the National Register

\_\_\_\_ Determined not eligible for the National Register

\_\_\_\_ Removed from the National Register

\_\_\_\_ Other (explain):
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

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\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Signature of Keeper Date of Action

**[6. FUNCTION OR USE]{.underline}**

Historic: DOMESTIC Sub: Single Dwelling

Current: VACANT/NOT IN USE Sub:

**[7. DESCRIPTION]{.underline}**

ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION: No Style

MATERIALS:

Foundation: STONE

> Walls: BRICK
>
> Roof: TIN

Other:

**Describe Present and Historic Physical Appearance.**

The John P. Parker House, situated along Front Street on lot 66 and
parts of lots 67 and 76 in the village of Ripley, Ohio (Union Township,
Brown County), faces an unobstructed view of the Ohio River to the south
and west and sits less than 100 feet back from the river bank. Found at
the far western end of Front Street, the building\'s remote location
contrasts sharply with the blocks of elegant nineteenth century
residences which line Front Street further east, between Locust and Main
streets. The Parker House currently is set on a village lot of
approximate 100\' frontage. Immediately east of the property is a
one-story tobacco warehouse at the corner of Locust and Front streets. A
one-story metal commercial building with elevations both on Front Street
and Sycamore Street is situated adjacent on the west. The site is vacant
at the rear, extending to an alley and to properties fronting on Second
Street. Side and rear yards appear either vacant or are currently used
in part for long-term parking of trucks and other vehicles. The site has
been cleared of brush and shade trees in recent years and is now barren
except for a single, tall deciduous tree at the rear of the house.
Situated about 20-30 feet east of the house near Front Street (within
the boundaries of this nomination) is a small, one-room, frame building
with a gable roof and aluminum siding. It dates from c. 1940 and was
used as an office for the coal yard that operated here in the
mid-twentieth century. This building is non-contributing.

Front Street terminates at Sycamore Street near the mouth of Red Run
Creek. Historically, this westernmost block of Front Street was taken up
by industrial uses. Previously, the city gas works occupied the property
just north of the Parker House at Sycamore Street, and the Ripley Mill
and Lumber Company (and its predecessors) conducted business from two
other nearby sites, one between Sycamore Street and Red Run, and the
other immediately adjacent to the Parker House at Locust Street (now the
site of the tobacco warehouse). The Ohio Piano Company, an important
Ripley manufacturing establishment, occupied the corner of Second and
Locust Streets for decades and part of that complex remains standing
today.

The John P. Parker House is now all that remains of an integrated
residential and manufacturing establishment at this location. Dating to
ca. 1853, and known at various times as the J.P. Parker Foundry and the
Phoenix Foundry, the complex originally included the present two-story
brick dwelling with a contiguous one and one-half story brick machine
shop along the west elevation and a one-story frame foundry and
blacksmith shop extending approximately eighty feet to the rear. Three
smaller frame sheds projected from the northeast corner of the foundry
and a cistern was placed just outside the northwest corner of this rear
structure (See Figure 1).

In 1889, a fire destroyed the rear portion of the site housing the
foundry, cupola furnace, core oven, blacksmith shop, and rear sheds.
Parker did not rebuild the foundry operation on this site following the
fire, but instead moved it to a nearby warehouse on the north side of
Sycamore Street at Front Street, now the site of buildings owned by the
Ripley Corporation. According to Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps drawn in
1890, only a section of the rear structure remained intact following the
fire, including a ten horsepower engine and a forty foot chimney along a
recessed east elevation. The machine shop and residence were spared from
complete destruction at this time, although they likely experienced
extensive damage from the fire.[^1]

There does not appear to have been direct access to the machine shop or
rear foundry from the main house, nor do any of the structures appear to
have shared party walls. It is not certain when the machine shop was
removed from the site, nor when the surviving structure, the dwelling
house, was erected. While documentary evidence suggests a circa 1850
construction date, architecturally, the main wing of the house may date
as much as two decades earlier; the rear L, however, appears to have
been a later addition.

Today, the Parker House is an L-shaped two-story brick building,
approximately 25\' x 50\', laid in common bond. A two-story nineteenth
century wooden addition set within the L of the house, until recently,
gave the entire property a rectangular shape. The exterior walls and
interior partitions of this narrow addition have been removed; all that
remains is a tall, narrow, free-standing brick chimney, probably for a
stove of some kind, which pierces the northeasternmost corner of the
roof.

The Parker House is three-bays wide set on a rough-cut coursed stone
foundation. The basement extends under the original masonry part of the
house. There are single basement windows (now appearing as holes in the
foundation) along the main and rear elevations. The main wing of the
house has a laterally-oriented gable roof and the rear wing features a
continuous shed roof covering both the brick L and the former frame
addition. The section of the roof previously covering the frame addition
is now held in place with wooden braces secured along the east wall. The
entire house is covered with a standing seam tin roof which is badly
rusted and partially open. The roof of the main wing has stepped gables
with a chimney incorporated into the gable end on the west. Both gable
ends are badly deteriorated and the chimney is missing. The rear portion
of the house has a two foot high parapet wall along the west elevation,
concealing the shed roof.

Windows are two over two double-hung sash (currently without glass) with
smooth-cut stone lintels and lugsills. A simple, unadorned wooden
cornice with stone endcaps at one time extended fully across the main
facade, but is now almost completely deteriorated. Steps leading to the
principal entrance of the building are a single piece of cast iron
consisting of three steps and a platform said to have been made at the
Parker foundry. As with other openings, the main entrance has a plain
stone lintel and sill. The single Victorian door is framed by beaded
columns and panels as well as a transom and sidelights.

Sidewalls of the main wing have no fenestration. The west elevation of
the brick L at the far northern end is pierced by two symmetrically
placed pairs of windows on the first and second stories and there is a
single first floor window, (now boarded) along the north or rear
elevation. The wooden addition, dating to the second half of the
nineteenth century, now entirely open and without interior partitions,
originally was surfaced with eight inch wide horizontal clapboards and
had doors in the rear wall on both the first and second floors. There
also were remnants of a stairway which led down from the second floor
door. All exterior walls of this wood-frame addition were recently
removed, exposing interior walls, doors, and windows on main and upper
levels. The walls are either of deteriorating plaster or exposed brick.
A basement door is accessed along this elevation via five very steep
stone steps. The narrow width of this former wood frame wing and the
windows and doors which appear all along this elevation suggest that
this addition actually was utilized as an enclosed porch. Sanborn Fire
Insurance maps dating to ca. 1884 indicate that this wood frame addition
was at one time open on the first level, although the rear one-third of
the structure on the first floor appears to have been enclosed around
the existing corner chimney.

The main or Front Street entrance of the Parker House enters into a side
hallway that features a winding walnut stairway with turned banisters.
There is a single landing with a ninety degree turn to upstairs rooms
and a doorway leading out onto the former wood-frame addition. The main
wing of the house is narrow, only eighteen feet.

A door immediately to the left upon entering the hallway leads to a
single room which occupies the remaining first floor space of the main
wing. A marble mantle in this front room has fallen off the wall and
through the floor. Evidence of a ceramic tile hearth was found in the
basement beneath. A door at the rear of the hall, underneath the
stairway exits the building. There is also a door to a storage area
underneath the stairs. The second floor plan of the main wing consists
of two rooms, one tiny room ten feet wide above the front hallway and
another larger adjacent room running the width of the main wing of the
house from south to north. Here is found the only intact fireplace,
which features a simple classical wood mantle and a later decorative
pierced iron screen.

The rear L of the house is in a severe state of deterioration. There
were originally two upper and two lower rooms, the front rooms being
slightly larger than those to the rear. Partition walls between rooms
appear to have fallen through first and second floors into the basement
along with exterior wall fireplaces.

The majority of interior woodwork, found mostly on the first floor of
the main wing, is wide, fluted, and has corner rosettes. Doors are of
solid wood and vary in style and size. All floors are of painted four
inch tongue and groove planking. Outside walls are plaster directly on
the brick and partition walls are plaster over wood lath. All walls
appear to have been papered. Most of the plaster is deteriorated, having
fallen away from the walls in some areas. Ceilings are absent, only
floor and roof joists are visible. Until recent times the ceilings were
plaster over wood lath, most of which had been papered.[^2] The house is
in a severe state of dilapidation.

**[STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE]{.underline}**

Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in
relation to other properties: Nationally: [**X**]{.underline}
Statewide:\_\_\_ Locally:\_\_\_

Applicable National

Register Criteria: A [X]{.underline} B [X]{.underline} C\_\_\_ D\_\_\_

Criteria Considerations

(Exceptions): A\_\_\_ B\_\_\_ C\_\_\_ D\_\_\_ E\_\_\_ F\_\_\_ G\_\_\_

> NHL Criteria: 1 and 2

NHL Theme(s): II. Creating Social Institutions and Movements

2\. Reform movements

National Register Areas of Significance: Social/Humanitarian, Invention,
Ethnic Heritage\--Black

Period(s) of Significance: ca. 1853-1865

> Significant Dates:
>
> Significant Person(s): Parker, John P.
>
> Cultural Affiliation: N/A
>
> Architect/Builder: Unknown

NHL Comparative Categories: XXXI. Social and Humanitarian Movements

D. Abolitionism

**State Significance of Property, and Justify Criteria, Criteria
Considerations, and Areas and Periods of Significance Noted Above.**

The John P. Parker House is significant as a National Historic Landmark
under Criteria 1 and 2 for John Parker's important association with the
American antislavery movement and the Underground Railroad. It should be
noted that there is potential for archaeological information dating at
least to the period of the mid-nineteenth century. A former slave,
Parker was one of many African-American conductors on the Underground
Railroad in the decades preceding the Civil War, but his particular
significance is magnified by the fact that his role is well documented
both in local records and in his autobiographical reminiscences recorded
before his death in 1900.

Although Parker\'s reputation is largely confined to the region of
southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky, his accomplishments in the
decade and a half prior to the Civil War and during that conflict are
significant in the context of the antebellum drive to abolish slavery in
the United States. Parker was not an outspoken abolitionist among his
peers. He appears never to have joined or participated in the activities
of antislavery societies and never achieved the notoriety of Harriet
Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, or many of the other less
celebrated black abolitionists from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and
other large urban centers in the North. Rather, it was Parker\'s
unflagging and oftentimes heroic efforts to rescue escaped slaves from
the \"borderlands\" along the Ohio River that underscores the major role
played by African-Americans not only as slaves and as fugitives, but as
rescuers on the Underground Railroad.

After having obtained his own freedom, John Parker not only assisted
escaped slaves en route to Canada, but repeatedly secreted himself back
into slave territory to free them and to lead them to safety. As far as
can be determined, with only one exception, he did not hide escaping
slaves at his Front Street property, but Parker lived and worked here
during the antebellum era, residing at this site probably as early as
1853. It was from this location that he worked diligently and with great
risk to his life and property with other Ripley abolitionists and
conductors on the Underground Railroad. Although his significance is
derived from his role as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, John
Parker's importance is further enhanced by his position in Ripley
society as a noted businessman, inventor, and entrepreneur. Parker
operated an iron foundry at this site from ca. 1853 until his death in
1900 and developed and patented a number of inventions from this
location. He is, in fact, notable as being ranked among the few
African-Americans who obtained U.S. patents for their inventions in the
nineteenth century. The John P. Parker House illustrates these
achievements and the antislavery activities of this former slave,
inventor, entrepreneur, and conductor on the Underground Railroad.

The role of free blacks such as John Parker of Ripley, Ohio in
developing and nurturing the antislavery movement has made American
abolitionism unique.[^3] Organized black abolitionists were speaking out
in opposition to African colonization efforts as early as 1817. By the
decade of the 1830s, a vocal black press was addressing not only issues
of slavery but of race and civil rights for free blacks, and they were
underwriting an increasingly radical campaign for immediate emancipation
as voiced by such national figures as William Lloyd Garrison in the
[Liberator]{.underline}. African-Americans worked in the antebellum
period as active participants in reaching an interracial consensus
against slavery in major national organizations such as the American
Antislavery Society established in 1833. By the decade of the 1840s, the
rise of African-American leaders like Frederick Douglass reflected the
increasing importance of former bondsman in the antislavery crusade,
replacing or superseding the well-established free black elites who had
predominated in the first few decades of the nineteenth century.
Ultimately, in a break with white Garrisonian abolitionism, a growing
militancy, race consciousness, and involvement in the national political
arena would characterize the black antislavery movement through the
period of the Civil War.

Among the more publicized activities of black abolitionists in the
antebellum period were the black vigilance committees, situated mostly
in larger cities along the eastern seaboard. These groups worked
together in a \"skillfully orchestrated, black-directed underground
railroad network\" that operated across the North and the upper
South.[^4] Often assisted by whites, these black vigilance committees
liberated many slaves and aided thousands of others in their escape to
freedom. Elsewhere, especially in the borderlands between the free
states and slave states, individual free blacks such as John Parker,
often working as one-man vigilance committees, proved instrumental in
assuring safe passage to the fugitive. As was often the case, once on
the \"road,\" the escaped slave tended initially to trust others of his
or her race rather than whites, and so these fugitives from oppression
often radiated toward and were concealed in all kinds of free black
communities throughout the North and West.

As distinct from the more extensively documented white antislavery
crusade, black abolitionism focused on the practical rather than
theoretical or abstract antislavery. John Parker's secretive activities
in aiding fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad provide but a
single example. More broadly speaking, the entire question of racial
equality was at issue.[^5] Black abolitionists called not only for the
elimination of chattel slavery but for political action, voting and
other civil rights, and an end to the struggle against racial prejudice
and oppression. Their cause was fought with good reason. Free blacks in
the northern states faced prejudicial and paternalistic treatment even
at the hands of their peers within the antislavery movement. Far worse
were black laws legislated in states outside the South which denied
African-Americans basic civil liberties. In Ohio, for instance, although
at no time in the history of the state did pro-slavery sentiment
predominate, there were those who were opposed to the presence of
African-Americans in Ohio whether slave or free, and a prevalent
legalized racism became the means for restricting their numbers.[^6]

Free blacks had resided in Ohio from the time the territory achieved
statehood in 1803, but they numbered only a few thousand as late as the
1820s. On the eve of the Civil War, the free black population in Ohio
had increased to 36,700, but that figure still represented only slightly
more than two percent of the population.[^7] Some had come early in the
century by way of the colonization of Southern blacks on Ohio soil by
owners who wished to free their slaves and make them self-sufficient.
One of the earliest migrations of record occurred in Brown County where
in 1818 some 900 manumitted slaves of Samuel Gist of Virginia were
settled on two large tracts of land, one about three miles north of
Georgetown, in Pleasant Township (White Oak Settlement), and the other
in the northeast part of the county, located two miles from Sardinia in
Washington Township (Brush Creek Settlement).[^8] These slave families
did not prosper, however. Some returned to Virginia, while many more
were reduced to pauperism. In later years their lands were sold and
eventually only a few families remained as relics of these once large
settlements. But as late as 1850, there were sizeable communities of
blacks residing in southern Ohio. In Brown County, for instance, free
blacks included seven percent (7%) of the population in Union Township
(where the village of Ripley is located), ten percent (10%) in Scott
Township, and seventeen percent (17%) in Eagle Township.[^9]

Elsewhere, communities of free blacks were unevenly distributed
throughout the state of Ohio with the largest concentrations in Hamilton
(Cincinnati), Ross, Gallia, and Franklin counties. Hamilton County
accounted for ten percent (10%) of the state\'s black population with
3,600 persons. The southwestern quadrant of the state outside of
Hamilton County, in addition to the eastern counties of Muskingum,
Belmont, and Jefferson, the latter two counties with a large Quaker
presence, also contained heavy concentrations. Few blacks lived in the
northern counties, however. Cuyahoga County, which included Cleveland,
led with 1,277, but thirty-four northern counties had fewer than 100
black residents each and some counties, especially in the northwestern
part of the state had none at all.[^10]

Despite the demographics, a kind of racial paranoia existed in the new
state of Ohio, especially in the southern tier of counties where the
number of free blacks was highest. Many whites feared that Ohio was
being made a dumping ground for manumitted slaves and believed the
state\'s borders needed protection from a massive influx of southern
blacks. Though the claims were exaggerated, a series of \"black codes\"
were instituted beginning about 1804, laws which, in essence, not only
discouraged black migration into the state but attempted to drive free
blacks out of the state entirely. Among the provisions included in
Ohio\'s black codes were requirements for certificates of freedom and
work permits, prohibition against blacks testifying in a court of law on
their own behalf in any case in which a white person was involved, and
segregated public schooling. Although many of these provisions were
generally ignored, Ohio\'s black codes severely restricted the social
and material advancement of African-Americans throughout the state.
Their frustration over a subservient status at times spilled over into
racial riots, such as that which took place in Cincinnati in 1829, riots
often precipitated by job competition with Ohio's growing immigrant
population.[^11]

Despite an overt racism, or perhaps because of it, the seeds of
antislavery sentiment in Ohio began to grow into a movement of major
significance as early as 1815. Quakers, who were among some of the
earliest settlers in Ohio, provided leadership in the abolitionist
movement from the outset. One of the most notable of the State's early
Quakers, for instance, was Benjamin Lundy, who established the first
western antislavery society in 1815 at St. Clairsville. Within a few
years Lundy and others were publishing their views in a small local
abolitionist press \-- the [Philanthropist]{.underline} out of Mt.
Pleasant (NHL: Benjamin Lundy House, May 30, 1974)\-- and Lundy's own
[Genius of Universal Emancipation]{.underline} was first published in
Ohio in 1821.[^12] Many early abolitionists in Ohio began their careers
as proponents of the American Colonization Society. Formed in 1816, this
group favored the establishment in Africa of a colony for America's free
blacks, and the Society secured Liberia on the west coast of Africa as a
place for their relocation. The colonization movement died out early on,
however, as the idea gave way in the minds and writings of abolitionists
to the concept of gradual emancipation without colonization, and by
1830, to a demand among a radical fringe or hard-core of abolitionists
for immediate emancipation for all slaves.

Much of the historical literature on the antislavery movement in the
decades preceding the Civil War focuses on such prominent New England
and east coast abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith,
and the Tappan brothers, individuals who vehemently took up the cause of
immediate emancipation beginning in the early 1830s. Yet, some of the
most virulent antislavery campaigns were carried out not in New England,
New York, or Philadelphia, but in the states of the Old Northwest, Ohio
being the most prominent among them in this regard.[^13] Together with
the region of Western New York, which came to be known as the "Burned
Over District," sections of the Old Northwest furnished much of the
strength and enthusiasm of the religious revivals that swept like
wildfire throughout the country in the first half of the nineteenth
century. Dubbed by later historians as the "Second Great Awakening,"
this resurgence of revivalistic preaching invigorated many religious
sects and denominations which had been languishing in terms of numbers
since the period of the American Revolution.[^14] The reform impulse
which so thoroughly pervaded American society in the antebellum period,
in fact, had its roots in this evangelical fervor which began in New
England in the 1790s and gained momentum in the South and West
particularly in the decade of the 1820s under the influence of such
persuasive leaders as Presbyterian-Congregationalist evangelist Charles
Grandison Finney.

Charles Finney spread his gospel through revival meetings across the
North and West in the years before the Civil War. His new brand of
evangelism replaced old Calvinist concepts of predestination and
depravity with the notion that human beings could effect their own
salvation and redemption. Yet, while personal salvation was achievable,
it nevertheless required immediate and complete repentance. This new
theology precipitated a number of evangelical trends, among them the
increasingly popular concepts of disinterested benevolence and
volunteerism, and the related doctrines of perfectionism and
millenialism, both of which posited a belief not only in human
perfectibility but ultimately in the creation of the kingdom of God on
earth. As a consequence, the evangelical message of the first half of
the nineteenth century was not only that of religious salvation but
societal reform, and many who fell under the influence of Charles Finney
and others like him turned to such causes as abolitionism and temperance
with vigor and commitment.[^15]

One such Finney convert was Theodore Dwight Weld, a still young, but
fervent, abolitionist, who came to Ohio to study for the ministry at the
Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati in 1833. Lane Seminary was a
very recently established theological institution over which noted New
England minister Lyman Beecher had been installed as president. Lane's
location in Cincinnati was ideal. The city was destined for phenomenal
growth in its position on the Ohio River as gateway to the West and
Southwest, and it was here that men like Weld and Beecher saw the future
of the country. Although Lyman Beecher carried a national reputation at
the time, the Lane faculty was less notable, but not so its students. Of
the forty members of the first theological class, all were over
twenty-six years of age, many had attended other colleges, others had
served as agents of benevolent societies, and the vast majority were
natives of New England or upstate New York, "a number having come from
the region around Auburn, Rochester, and Utica, New York where the
embers of Finney's great revival still glowed hot."[^16] More than half
the students also had been enrolled previously at Oneida Institute, a
"manual labor" educational institution at which Weld had become a
dominant figure, and Weld's influence remained paramount among the
students at Lane Seminary.

According to one of his biographers, in Lane's formative years, Theodore
Weld was the only student with "forthright abolitionist convictions."
While some others voiced antislavery sympathies, most favored the
gradualist methods of the American colonizationists.[^17] However, under
Weld's influence many students were aroused to greater commitment on
behalf of both slave and freeman. Weld and other Lane students
established an abolition society at the school and they developed
antislavery lectures and performed charitable work within Cincinnati's
black community, all toward the end of achieving a greater degree of
social equality for free blacks in that city. Weld, in particular, was a
man endowed with considerable charismatic powers. In 1834 he organized a
series of antislavery lectures at Lane, known as the Lane Debates, and
used his powers of persuasion to convince students and faculty of that
institution not only that abolition of slavery was essential, but that
\"immediate\" emancipation should be the rallying cry behind the cause.

In some respects, Cincinnati was a Southern city on free soil during
this period and one with strong commercial ties to the South. As with
much of the region of southern Ohio, Cincinnati seethed with pent-up
prejudices, especially strong because of the city's sizeable black
population. Hearing word of the debates and agitated by the student's
work within the black community, citizens pressured college officials to
put a stop to the student's blatant activism. Ultimately, however, when
faced with the choice of expulsion or restrictive regulations on their
behavior, the majority of involved students resigned rather than
compromise their principles.

Following the Lane controversy and responding to an invitation from the
founder of the Western Reserve's Oberlin College, Theodore Weld and
other former Lane students enrolled at that new institution in 1835.
Weld, in particular, proved instrumental in bringing Charles Finney to
Oberlin, and the small community soon became one of Ohio\'s centers of
abolitionism. Together, Finney and Weld converted many Ohioans to the
cause and laid the groundwork for a state abolition convention held at
Putnam in 1835 and the creation of the Ohio Antislavery Society, an
affiliate of the American Anti-Slavery Society established two years
previous in 1833. By 1836, some 120 affiliated and non-affiliated
antislavery societies in Ohio claimed about 10,000 members; just two
years later those numbers had nearly tripled. The great bulk of these
societies were found on the Western Reserve, with central and
southwestern Ohio providing the rest.[^18]

In point of fact, the Western Reserve and the Lake Region of Ohio proved
more hospitable to antislavery activity than the rest of the state. This
was due in large part to the cultural differences between northern and
southern regions of Ohio. In the early years, the Old Northwest had been
dominated by transplanted southerners who settled the hills and valleys
of Southern Ohio. Among this group were those who had no special hatred
for blacks and who even risked social ostracism by opposing slavery
while in the South. But most had been raised with the institution and
continued to defend it while yet living on the free soils of Ohio.

There were anti-slavery settlers during this period also. During the
early years of statehood, entire communities of Quakers also came to
Ohio from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Carolinas. They
settled such communities as Mt. Pleasant, Salem, Lisbon, and other towns
mostly in southwestern Ohio and brought with them a message of pacifism
and opposition to slavery. Though their influence in the antislavery
cause was considerable, their numbers were small in relation to the
overall population.[^19]

In contrast, among the more conspicuous of emigrants to northern Ohio
were those of New England ancestry, either those who came directly from
New England or those who were once removed from Yankee communities in
western New York.[^20] They had arrived in the years between 1810 and
1850 at a time when improvements in transportation added thousands of
settlers to the state's already diverse cultural landscape. As Ohio's
social divisions grew, differences between north and south often flared
up quite dramatically. For example, anti-abolitionist mobs were most
common in counties bordering the Ohio River, while opposition to the
state's discriminatory Black Laws existed mostly on the Western Reserve
and in the Lake region.

Whether in the more hostile environment of southern Ohio or in the more
tolerant counties of the Western Reserve, in the years before the Civil
War Ohio\'s abolitionist strongholds often were also places of extensive
Underground Railroad activity. The Ordinance of 1787 forbid slavery
north of the Ohio River, and so the state became a tempting haven for
fugitive slaves from an early time. Some of the settlers who migrated to
Ohio from the South came with powerful antislavery sentiments and a
fervent desire to make their homes in a free soil state. As settlements
of antislavery proponents became more numerous in southern Ohio, the
north bank of the Ohio River eventually sprouted several \"reception\"
centers on the Underground Railroad and routes of escape moved in a
zigzag fashion northward to the Great Lakes and beyond into Canada.

Primarily because of its location bordering the slave states, Ohio was
said to be \"by far the most highly successful of all the states
involved \[on the Underground Railroad\].\"[^21] According to Wilbur H.
Siebert, one of the earliest historians of the Underground Railroad in
Ohio, there were no less than twenty-three ports of entry for runaways
along the Ohio riverfront.

> Thirteen of these admitted the slaves from the two hundred and
> seventy-five miles of Kentucky shore on our southwest, while the other
> ten received those from the one hundred and fifty miles of Virginia
> soil on our southeast. From these initial depots the Ohio routes ran
> in zigzag lines, trending generally in a northeastern direction,
> linking station with station in a mysterious bond till a place of
> deportation was reached on Lake Erie.[^22]

Mob activity, precipitated by the attempted arrest of \"underground
passengers,\" often provided the best documented evidence of a
community\'s inclusion within the Underground Railroad network. Among
other places (including Ripley), such incidents were reported in
Columbus, Granville, Bellefontaine, Marysville, Toledo, Marion, Troy,
Dayton, Mechanicsburg, Putnam, Wooster, and many other of the estimated
225 or more places at which Ohio\'s underground stations were said to be
located.[^23]

Although many of the state\'s Underground Railroad centers have achieved
fame, often more from legend than actual fact, in Brown County the
reputation of Ripley as Ohio\'s \"black hole of abolitionism\" is well
documented and unquestioned.[^24] The town and its bevy of Underground
Railroad men and women perhaps eclipsed the notoriety of Cincinnati and
the avid antislavery work of noted abolitionist Levi Coffin. Ripley was
located within the old Northwest Territory on the north shore of the
Ohio River at the southern edge of the Virginia Military District. These
lands had been set aside as land in lieu of payment to Virginia\'s
Revolutionary War veterans. According to John P. Parker, \"these wild
lands were the only place where the Virginia or Southern masters could
take their slaves and free them, without any liability to themselves.\"
Gathered in the District were antislavery men from North and South
Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.[^25]

The present site of Ripley was founded on a portion of the 1,000 acres
of Survey No. 418 of the Virginia Military District purchased by Colonel
James Poage of Staunton, Virginia. Said to be opposed to slavery, Poage
was determined to live in a free state and settled on his claim as early
as 1804. Ripley itself was incorporated as the village of Staunton in
1812. The name was changed February 23, 1816 in honor of Brigadier
General Eleazar Wheelock Ripley for his gallantry in the War of
1812.[^26]

In the years before the railroads made their way extensively into Ohio,
Ripley was one of the great Ohio River shipping points in southern Ohio,
located just fifty miles upriver from Cincinnati. The village lies in a
picturesque setting on uneven ground with a river frontage of more than
a mile, divided into east and west by Red Oak Creek. The town faces the
river and its back nestles up against a high hill about 400 feet above
the river bank. The river here is nearly one-half mile wide and proved
to be a deep water landing, especially important to the town in the
steamboat era. Although Ripley\'s most colorful period began with the
first steamboats, the town flourished as a commercial river port even in
the flatboat era.

Today the village of Ripley includes a large historic district of
residential and commercial buildings, some of which date as early as
1816. Front Street is probably the most notable section within the
historic part of town being comprised of four to five long blocks of
elegant homes, several of them once owned by antislavery men who worked
as conductors on the Underground Railroad out of Ripley. Various
monuments erected during the village\'s Centennial Week in 1912
commemorate Ripley\'s noted abolitionists and \"railroaders.\" The
Liberty Monument at the foot of Main Street on the Ohio River remembers
local antislavery figure Rev. John Rankin and others, such as Col. James
Poage, Thomas McCague, Thomas Collins, Dr. Alfred Beasley, Theodore
Collins, Samuel Kirkpatrick, John Parker, U.S. Senator Alexander
Campbell, and others outside of Ripley who served the fugitive slave on
connecting routes north at Russellville, Decatur, and Sardinia.[^27]

A number of those remembered at one time had their homes along Front
Street and were among the first to receive fugitive slaves as they
stepped from boats onto the free soil of Ohio. In his narrated memoirs
recorded in the late 1880s, John Parker recalled a few of the old homes
still standing at the time which were places of refuge for the runaway.

> Facing the river on the corner of \[Front\] Street and Mulberry stands
> the old Collins house, a two storied brick house around which are
> gathered many of the dramatic episodes of this period. At the top of
> the river bank, its two doors facing two different streets, made it
> easy access to the fleeing fugitives. The doors unlocked, lighted
> candle on the table, many times I have slipped into this room,
> surrounded by a motley group of scared fugitives. Arousing the man of
> the house, he would quickly feed the crowd, then take them out the
> back way through the alley, over the hills to Red Oak or Russellville.
> If this old house could only bring back its shadows, they would be
> many and mingled.
>
> Further down on Front Street is the \[Thomas\] McCague house with its
> narrow high stoop, up whose steps many strange men and women went
> gently tapping on the door. The cellar and the garret have been filled
> with breathless fugitives. Like the Collins house and all the other
> houses of these early abolitionists, the door was always ajar, and the
> candle in the room lighted and waiting to welcome any and all who
> entered.[^28]

The true fortress and home to the fugitive slave in Ripley, however, was
far from Front Street and the river. This was the house of John Rankin,
perched high on a hill behind the town. Even today, Rankin is by far the
most celebrated of all of Ripley\'s abolitionists. This Presbyterian
minister\'s hilltop home served as a beacon to escaping slaves,
allegedly including \"Eliza\" whose journey across the ice-clogged Ohio
River is immortalized in Harriet Beecher Stowe\'s book, [Uncle Tom\'s
Cabin]{.underline}. Of Rankin\'s home Parker commented:

At times attacked on all sides by masters seeking their slaves, \[John
Rankin and his sons\] beat back their assailant, and held its threshold
unsullied. A lighted candle stood as beacon which could be seen from
across the river, and like the north star was the guide to the fleeing
slave. In this eagle\'s nest, Rev. John Rankin and his sons held forth
during many stormy years, and only left the old home when their work was
well and lastingly done.[^29]

John Parker\'s home itself was along the riverfront at the far west end
of Front Street, somewhat isolated from the residential blocks further
east. The house stood immediately adjacent to an iron foundry over which
Parker had become proprietor about 1854. As Parker\'s home and shop were
on the top of the bank of the river, the site proved easily accessible
to anyone who cared to row across the river and walk up to the top of
the bank. On the other hand, being remote from the homes of his friends,
Parker\'s property was all the more accessible to those who ventured to
attack him, i.e. the slave catchers.[^30] Although there is no record of
Parker\'s ownership of the site until 1865, it appears that he resided
here in the antebellum period, as evidenced from his reminiscences about
the home in the late 1880s when his ownership and residency are
accurately documented.

> I am now living under my own roof \[on Front Street\], which still
> stands just as it did in the old strange days. I saw it grow brick by
> brick. It too has heard the gentle tapping of fugitives. It also has
> heard the cursing at the door of the angry masters. It too has played
> its part in concealing men and women seeking a haven of safety.
> Standing, facing the river, it has weathered the storms of years, very
> much better than its owner and builder. But we have seen adventurous
> nights together, which I am glad to say, will never come again.[^31]

Although he oftentimes worked alone, John Parker nonetheless was part of
a larger, loosely organized network of \"railroad\" conductors in and
about the abolitionist stronghold of Ripley. According to Parker, early
on in his work of aiding the fugitive slave, his contact with the other
Ripley and Brown County abolitionists was always close and was
maintained as such until the end of the Civil War.[^32] Unlike his
antislavery contemporaries in Ripley, however, Parker time and again
secreted himself across the Ohio River into the borderlands of Northern
Kentucky in search of escaping slaves, providing them safe passage on
the final leg of their journey to the North and freedom. At times,
escaped slaves would be brought to Parker's door by other "conductors"
or friends and he would quickly move them along to the homes of other
Ripley Underground Railroad men such as the Colllins brothers, Thomas
McCague, John Rankin, or further up the line to Rev. James Gilliland
where they would be temporarily hidden in the Red Oak Presbyterian
Church (National Register of Historic Places, 6-17-82) about four miles
north of Ripley. According to Parker, "\[i\]n the main my work was to
continuously get the fugitives out of town, see them safely \[passed on
to agents of the Underground Railroad\]."[^33]

Although Parker aided the fugitive slaves from his Front Street
property, as far as can be determined, only once did he in fact hide
escaping slaves in his own home. In this incident, two escaped slaves
had fallen prey to a paid spy whose intent was to bring them to the
local Marshal's office and secure a reward. En route, the spy was
overtaken by a group of colored free men, who forcibly rescued the two
men and brought them to Parker's house, where as he relates the story,
his first mistake was to accept responsibility for the fugitives.
According to Parker, "as it was too late to get them away before
daylight, I did the second wrong thing by hiding them in my own house,
something which I had always refused to do before. So I took them up to
my attic hoping that there was no one \[who had\] followed the fugitives
to my house. Then the rumpus began and I had the fright of my whole
life."[^34]

John Parker had already attained considerable notoriety among the slave
catchers who worked along the borderlands of northern Kentucky. An armed
crowd who had met up with the "spy" evidently knew that the two
fugitives had been brought to Parker's house, and although they did not
own the two runaways, they felt that "this was their one chance to get
even if not completely rid of \[Parker\] as a menace to their own
slaves."[^35]

> I had hardly settled myself down for a nap, when there came a hard
> knocking at my front door. I made the third mistake this night by
> going directly to my door instead of making my first observations out
> of the front window. As I unlocked and opened the door the crowd
> rushed me, seizing me violently\....
>
> Being helpless in their hands, I made a great bluff of innocence,
> asking them to search the house, if they wished to do so\.... First
> they examined every nook and corner downstairs, placing guards around
> the house to see that no one got away. Not having formulated a plan, I
> delayed the search as much as I could, still looking for a loop hole.
> Having finished the first floor, they started up the stairs\.... At
> the top of the stairs I shouted in a loud voice to my captors, that
> they could look the house over and even on the roof, \[but\] they
> would find no one. This I did for the benefit of the two slaves in the
> attic, not only to notify them of their danger, but to give them a
> clue to take refuge on the roof, which was my only chance of getting
> out of the jam. After this loud talk I conducted the party into my
> bedroom, kept them busy looking into closets, slamming the doors, and
> making all the confusion I could, to muffle any row the slaves might
> make in their efforts to escape capture\....
>
> All the while I was fairly quaking inwardly with fear, from the
> discovery of the two slaves that would surely follow, when the garret
> was searched. I put off swallowing this bitter pill as long as I
> could, as I could see the confiscation of all my land and seized
> property, and the wreckage of my whole life's work. I had a fleeting
> hope that in some way the stairs to the attic would be overlooked, as
> the whole party had passed by them in their search.
>
> It was only a fleeting hope, however, for as we crowded out into the
> hall one of the searchers exclaimed: "there's the attic stairs." If
> the man had pronounced the judgment of death upon me, I could not have
> felt the shock more, than I did at this announcement of his
> discovery\....
>
> I knew the room permitted no hiding place for one man, let alone two,
> as it was a plain attic with rafters showing overhead and clear floor
> beneath. The detection of the two men was only a question of a few
> moments. The man ahead of me carried a lighted lantern, the feeble
> rays dimly dispelling the darkness of the attic. Looking through the
> gloom, I saw the shadowy outline of the two\...figures in the farthest
> corner.
>
> I faltered and my heart went sick as I waited for the exultant shout
> of the men about me. If the leader was blind surely the men who
> crowded up the stairs would see, but they too stared and said nothing.
> Could my eyes deceive me? Not at all, because there in front of them I
> could see the two fugitives so that it was only a question of time for
> my captors to be accustomed to the surrounding darkness, to see the
> slaves as I saw them.
>
> I turned my eyes away, for fear my staring would give the position of
> the two slaves away, still I could not conceive how two men could be
> in plain sight as these were to me, and not be seen by the rest of the
> party. I suggested that we go back downstairs. Instead, the man with a
> lantern advanced further into the attic, while the outline of the two
> fugitives faded away leaving only an empty space.
>
> A diligent search through out the garret proved that the men had
> escaped \[a surprise\] to me and a complete puzzle to the searchers. I
> was really puzzled myself until I discovered the ladder leading to the
> roof was missing. Then it was that I knew that my two men were hugging
> the roof, but they had \[taken\] the precaution to haul up the ladder
> with them. I had a bad moment when the man with the latern held it
> high over his head; it was only the last act of his futile search of
> the disappointed crowd.[^36]

Much of what is known of John P. Parker comes from his narrated
autobiography written down by Frank M. Gregg, a journalist and author
whose research and interviews conducted in the 1880s and 1890s have
provided much of the documentary evidence used in commemorating the town
of Ripley\'s role in the antislavery crusade. Though at times recognized
for his work on the Underground Railroad, Parker\'s name has just as
often been omitted from lists of celebrated figures of Underground
Railroad fame. For years, his memoir went unrecognized, though the
original copy was preserved in the archives of the Flowers' Collection
of Southern Americana at Duke University Library. Notes from the
handwritten interview have recently been fully transcribed and are soon
to be published as the autobiography of John P. Parker by W.W Norton
Press under the title, [His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John P.
Parker Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground
Railroad]{.underline}," Stuart Seely Sprague, editor.

John Parker, a mulatto, was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1827 of a black
mother and a white father. Separated from his mother at the age of
eight, Parker was sold into slavery and forced to walk in chains along
with a gang of 400 slaves from the slave block in Richmond, Virginia to
the end of the slave trail at Mobile, Alabama. Parker spoke of an inner
rage over his condition even as a young boy and he never acquiesced to
accept his status as slave. Fortuitously, the boy was bought by a kindly
doctor in Mobile, Alabama and Parker lived with some contentment and
security for a number of years. The doctor\'s sons taught young Parker
to read and write and, secretly, he read voraciously from the doctor\'s
private library.

At about the age of thirteen, the doctor encouraged Parker to learn a
trade, believing the lad would never be content to work as a house man;
the only other alternative being work as a slave in the cotton fields.
Apprenticed to a plasterer who used him cruelly, Parker soon escaped,
nearly losing his life more than once. A mixture of luck and ingenuity
helped him evade greedy captors at least three different times during
the escape. Ultimately, Parker returned, almost miraculously, to the
kind care of the Mobile doctor who at once arranged for his placement
with the owner of an iron foundry.

Being of an inventive turn of mind, by his own account, Parker soon was
doing more and better work than any man in the shop. During this time,
as was the case with many \"urban\" slaves in the south, Parker was
allowed to keep his own wages. Still young, the boy became extravagant
in the use of his pay and found himself frequently in confrontation with
employers or co-workers, those who resented most of all his mechanical
abilities and success at the bench. Parker\'s fighting compelled the
doctor to send him out of Mobile to work at a foundry in New Orleans.
But even there, the hostility of others in the shop resulted in his
dismissal. Exasperated, the doctor refused to protect Parker any longer
and determined to sell him as a field hand. Desperate, the young slave
decided to take matters into his own hands and pleaded with a widowed
patient of the doctor\'s to assume his ownership and allow him to
purchase his freedom, agreeing to repay her the sum of \$1,800 on
installments from his earnings as a moulder. Finding work again in
Mobile, Parker was able in just a year and a half to accomplish his
life\'s goal, making his final payment to the widow at the age of
eighteen in 1845.[^37]

As he labored passionately toward freedom, Parker\'s inventive mind
flourished. He had been quietly working for some time on a new idea for
a circular harrow or \"clod smasher,\" which would benefit farmers
moving into new western and Gulf territories with so much virgin land to
break up.

> \[O\]n my own time I secretly made a model. It looked so good I showed
> it to the superintendent, who took it so much to heart, I never saw my
> model again. I went to the owner of the foundry, who in turn called in
> the superintendent. In my presence the superintendent claimed both the
> idea and model were his, and that I had nothing to do with the
> development of the machine. The words were hardly out of his mouth
> when I had him by the throat. If I had been \[in\] normal
> \[circumstances\], I never would have done such a senseless thing like
> that. But I had hopes that my invention would not only pay me out of
> slavery, but give a start when I was free.[^38]

Parker eventually would patent the invention, but not for four decades,
although for many years he was able to benefit from its production and
sale in his own shop. As it was, upon securing his freedom, Parker left
Mobile and made his way to New Albany in Indiana and then on to
Cincinnati where he worked as an iron molder and in 1848 married Miranda
Bouylden, a native of that town.

Parker\'s first, quite reluctant, experience with runaway slaves
occurred while in Cincinnati. Asked repeatedly by a freeman of the city
to help him rescue two runaway girls, Parker at last acquiesced and the
pair of \"conductors\" traveled upriver to the small town of Ripley and
beyond to Maysville, Kentucky where the girls were located. Narrowly
accomplishing the escape with aid from Ripley\'s Underground agents,
Parker\'s first adventure prompted him to settle permanently in Ripley,
which he

did with his family about 1849 or 1850, and for the next decade and a
half he labored for the fugitive slave in the \"borderland\" in and
around that small river town.[^39]

Parker\'s heroic captures and his fearless attitude in the face of
belligerent and threatening slave catchers gained him local notoriety.
As with other Ripley abolitionists, especially John Rankin, a bounty was
placed on Parker\'s head by angry slave owners from the border state of
Kentucky. Threats to his life did not dissuade him from continuing the
crusade, however. Even after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of
1850, when the attitude of the town\'s people of Ripley grew more
critical of Underground Railroad activity and when detection and capture
meant confiscation of property, a fine, and jail sentence, Parker never
tired of his work, only becoming more secretive than ever. He recalled
keeping a diary which gave the names, dates and circumstances of all the
slaves he had helped run away, which early on numbered 315. But since he
had accumulated considerable property by this time, he threw the diary
into the iron furnace \"as a matter of safety\...for fear it might fall
into other hands.\"[^40] Ultimately, it is believed that Parker may have
helped liberate more than one thousand slaves from the borderlands along
the Ohio River.

Despite the restrictions and prejudices against African-Americans in
antebellum Ohio, a few black businessmen and real estate owners did in
fact prosper in some of the state\'s larger metropolitan areas and
smaller cities in the southern half of the state.[^41] John P. Parker
was one such man. While by night stealing away across the Ohio River to
aid fugitive slaves on the last leg of their journey to free territory,
by day Parker was a successful businessman and entrepreneur. He worked
at the iron foundry of Thomas and William McCague for a time after
coming to Ripley and soon became proprietor of that operation. The
foundry operation was likely constructed in part by about 1853, as a
deed of mortgage to William McCague for that year mentions specifically
lot number sixty seven in the town of Ripley, \"with all and singular
the appurtenances, together with & including the steam engine, boiler
and all the tools implements & finishing machinery, patterns and all the
fixtures and appurtenances & implements to the said steam engine,
boiler, finishing machinery foundry & blacksmith shop on said
premises.\"[^42] Later known as the Phoenix Foundry, Parker purchased
the facility from William McCague in 1865 while in partnership with
William Hood.

By concentrating on his dealings with fugitive slaves, Parker's own
memoir ignores the business and entrepreneurial side of his life.
Although more is known of Parker\'s antislavery activities in the
antebellum period than his business successes, in the years following
the Civil War his business is known to have flourished, though at times
barely weathering the economic downturns of the late nineteenth century.
According to Sanborn fire insurance maps drawn in the 1880s and 1890s
for the village of Ripley, Parker\'s machine shop was located
immediately adjacent to his residence. Behind the machine shop was the
coal-powered foundry and a blacksmith shop. A fire in August 1889
appears to have completely destroyed the foundry, but the machine shop
and adjacent house, though probably damaged, survived and were still
standing in the 1890s. The foundry operation was subsequently moved a
half block west to a site at the corner of Sycamore and Front
streets.[^43] Known variously as the John P. Parker Foundry, the Phoenix
Foundry, and later as the Ripley Foundry and Machine Company, Parker\'s
shop manufactured a wide selection of items including threshing
machines, portable engines, reapers, plows, iron frames for school house
seats, sugar mills, and steam engines. Parker patented many of these
items himself, placing him in company with the few African-Americans who
obtained patents in America before 1900. The clod smasher or soil
pulveriser that he had devised while still a slave was finally patented
in 1890. His most notable invention, however, was the portable tobacco
screw press, patented in April 1885, especially adapted to press tobacco
into hogsheads for transport and sale.[^44] (See Attachments 1 and 2)

Parker remained in business at the Phoenix Foundry until his death on
January 30th, 1900.[^45] His principal business by that time was
manufacturing tobacco screws. The fire that ruined the foundry in 1889,
along with additional economic crises in the decade of the 1890s,
probably led Parker to draft a will that forbade his six offspring from
carrying on the business. He sent them instead to college and encouraged
them toward the attainment of learned professions.

Following Parker's death, the Front Street property passed into the
hands of his wife, Miranda.[^46] She sold the property shortly
thereafter and the house was subsequently used for rental property for a
number of years. It is not known when the machine shop was removed from
the site. For many years, from the 1940s through the 1980s, the house
was used for rental property or storage under the ownership of a coal
and oil distributer. Coal was stored on the property behind the house
and loaded onto barges pulling right up to the river bank via a conveyor
or trestle that passed over Front Street. The house and property were
recently purchased by the John P. Parker Historical Society, Inc. The
Society intends to restore the house and collect, display, and interpret
items dealing with the life and times of John P. Parker, and to utilize
the same for educational purposes. More specifically, the Society
intends to promote and develop community interest in, and advance the
knowledge and appreciation of the life of John P. Parker and
African-American achievements on the Underground Railroad in Ohio.

Neither the practical nor the philosophical tenets of John P. Parker\'s
abolitionism are known. He was not an orator or writer as many of his
contemporaries, but he spoke loudly for the cause through his commitment
to the fugitive slave on the Underground Railroad. A former slave who
had bought his own freedom, Parker knew first hand about the evils and
degradation of slavery. In his memoirs he spoke articulately about his
feelings and attitudes toward that \"peculiar\" institution. Says
Parker, \"It was not the physical part of slavery that made it cruel and
degrading, it was the taking away from a human being the initiative of
thinking, of doing his own ways\.... \[T\]here was not so much brutality
in slavery as one might expect. It was an incident to the curse, but the
real injury was the making of a human being an animal without
hope.\"[^47]

John P. Parker, then, was a slave who overcame the institution of
chattel slavery. According to Louis Weeks, in a 1971 article about the
former slave, Parker was an \"unheralded\" participant in the
Underground Railroad. Against all odds, he advanced his status to that
of successful inventor and businessman in the southernmost regions of
Ohio. He was for many years an \"independent, militant black man in an
essentially white power structure of trade and finance.\"

> 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 slave, and as a skilled laborer he enjoyed a
> mobility within the system not usually afforded slaves \--even those
> in the cities of the antebellum South. Significantly, Parker bought
> his own freedom\...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\...thesis that white participation
> in the movement has been exaggerated while black involvement has been
> generally overlooked. Parker\'s willingness to risk his life and
> property in freeing his brothers and sisters in bondage 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.[^48]

According to John Parker, the real warfare against slavery in the
borderlands along the Ohio river was waged around the few houses at the
top of the river bank on Front Street in Ripley, Ohio. \"The occupants
of these few homes were the midnight marauders, very secretive and
silent in their ways, but trustworthy and friendly to the fugitives.\"
The rescuers were watched by their neighbors, threatened by authorities
and frequently betrayed by friends. Their work was done under cover of
night and they used all manner of subterfuge to throw slave catchers off
their trail. In spite of hardships and beset with difficulties year
after year, they performed their work not as a burden but as a duty. And
they did perform it well.[^49]

Modestly, says Parker, \"the real history of these men and this period
will never be told, for the principal actors have passed away, leaving
here and there stray episodes, which are mere incidents of the real
adventure going on behind the scenes. But the strategies resorted to,
the ambushes sprung, and the actual hand to hand conflicts between
individuals and groups in the Borderland, will never be told, for the
simple reason that the men who knew dare not tell what they knew."[^50]

**[9. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES]{.underline}**

Baker, Henry E. \"The Negro in the Field of Invention.\" [Journal of
Negro History]{.underline} 2 (1917): 21-36.

Beers, E.H. [The History of Brown County, Ohio]{.underline}. Chicago:
W.H. Beers & Co., 1883.

Birney, William. [James G. Birney and His Times]{.underline}. New York:
Negro Universities Press, 1969; 1890 reprint).

Blockson, Charles L. [Hippocrene Guide to the Underground
Railroad]{.underline}. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994.

Brown County Auditor\'s Office. [Transfer Books]{.underline} 1833-1904.

Brown County Recorder\'s Office. Deed Books I: 34 and R-43: 399.

Brown County Historical Society. [Brown County Ohio: History and
Families (1818-1993)]{.underline}. Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Publishing
Co., 1992.

Finkenbine, Roy E., Hembree, Michael F., and Donald Yacovone, eds.
[Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and
Emancipation]{.underline}. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1993.

Fogel, Robert William. [Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall
of American Slavery]{.underline}. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989.

Foner, Eric, ed. [America\'s Black Past: A Reader in Afro-American
History]{.underline}. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.

Fruehling, Byron D. and Robert H. Smith. \"Subterranean Hideways of the
Underground Railroad in Ohio: An Architectural, Archaeological and
Historical Critique of Local Traditions.\" [Ohio History]{.underline}
102 (1993): 98-117.

Gary, Larry. [The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground
Railroad]{.underline}. University of Kentucky Press, 1961.

Gara, Larry. \"The Underground Railroad: Legends and Reality.\"
[Timeline]{.underline} 5 No. 4 (1988): 18-31.

Gregg, Frank M. \"Account of the Escape of the Slave Woman Eliza, As
Recounted to Him by John Rankin, Jr.\" Unpublished Manuscript. Ripley,
Ohio, Union Township Library, 27 Main Street, Ripely, Ohio.

Gregg, Frank M. \"Story of the Life of John Parker as Dictated by the
Former Slave Himself.\" William R. Perkins Library, Duke University.

Grim, Paul R. \"The Rev. John Rankin, Early Abolitionist.\" [The Ohio
State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly]{.underline} 46 (1937):
215-256.

[Headlight, The: A Periodical Devoted to the Interests of Railroads and
Railroad Centers]{.underline}. Ripley Edition. Ripley, Ohio, December
1897.

Howe, Henry. [Historical Collections of Ohio]{.underline}. 3 vols.
Columbus, Ohio: Henry Howe & Son, 1891.

Knepper, George W. [Ohio and Its People]{.underline}. Kent, Ohio: The
Kent State University Press, 1989.

Koch, Felix J. "Marking the Old 'Abolition Holes'." [Ohio Archeological
and Historical Society Publications]{.underline} 22 (1913): 308-318.

Lake, D.J. and B.N. Griffing. [Atlas of Brown County, Ohio]{.underline}.
Philadelphia: Lake, Griffing and Stevenson, 1876.

Lesick, Lawrence Thomas. [The Lane Rebels: Evangelicalism and
Antislavery in Antebellum America]{.underline}, Studies in
Evangelicalism No. 2. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.,
1980.

Letters Patent No. 318,285, dated May 19, 1885 and No. 442,538, dated
December 9, 1890, U.S. Patent Office.

Litwack, Leon F. [North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States,
1790-1860]{.underline}. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

McKivigan, John R. [The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism
and the Northern Churches, 1830-1865]{.underline}. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1984.

\"Men Who Worked on the Underground Railroad in Ohio.\" [The Cincinnati
Commercial Tribune]{.underline}, February 18,1900.

Oates, Stephen B. \"God\'s Voice Against Slavery.\"
[Timeline]{.underline} 6 No. 5 (1989): 3-17.

Parker, John P. House. United States Department of the Interior,
National Park Service National Register of Historic Places
Inventory-Nomination Form, January 9, 1980.

Quarles, Benjamin. [Black Abolitionists]{.underline}. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1969.

[Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps]{.underline}, 1884, 1890, 1895, 1904.

Siebert, Wilbur H. [The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to
Freedom]{.underline}. The American Negro: His History and Literature
Series. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

. \"The Underground Railroad for the Liberation of Fugitive Slaves.\"
[American Historical Association Annual Report for 1895]{.underline}.
Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1896: 395-402.

. \"The Underground Railroad in Ohio.\" [Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Society Quarterly]{.underline} 4 (January 1896): 44-63.

. [The Mysteries of Ohio\'s Underground Railroad]{.underline}. Columbus,
Ohio: Long\'s College Book Club, 1951.

. \"Interview with Capt. R.C. Rankin.\" Ripley, Ohio, April 8, 1892.
Siebert Collection. Ohio Historical Society, Box 102.

Siebert, Wilbur H. Collection. Ohio Historical Society.

Sprague, Stuart Seely, ed. [His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John
P. Parker Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground
Railroad]{.underline}. New York: Norton, forthcoming 1996.

Stivers, Eliese Bambach. [Ripley, Ohio: Its History and
Families]{.underline}. Ripley, Ohio: Eliese Bambach S Stivers, 1965.

Thomas, Benjamin P. [Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom]{.underline}.
New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1950.

Tyler, Alice Felt. [Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History
from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War]{.underline}.
New York: Harper & Row, 1962.

University of Cincinnati, Department of Architecture. " John P. Parker
House: Historic Structure Report," 1981.

Volpe, Vernon L. [Forlorn Hope of Freedom: The Liberty Party in the Old
Northwest, 1838-1848]{.underline}. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University
Press, 1990.

Weeks, Louis. \"John P. Parker: Black Abolitionist Entrepreneur,
1827-1900.\" [Ohio History]{.underline} 80 No. 2 (1971): 155-162.

Wilson, Charles Jay. \"The Negro in Early Ohio.\" [Ohio Archaeological
and Historical Quarterly]{.underline} 39 No. 4 (1930): 717-767.

Young, Paul. \"John Parker: Ripley\'s Black Abolitionist.\" [Ohio
Southland: A Quarterly Journal of History for Adams, Brown, Clermont &
Highland Counties]{.underline}, Winter (1990): 4-13.

Zachman, Richard E. [Historical Homes of Ripley]{.underline}. Ripley,
Ohio: American Revolution Bicentennial, 1976.

Previous documentation on file (NPS):

\_\_\_ Preliminary Determination of Individual Listing (36 CFR 67) has
been requested.

[X]{.underline} Previously Listed in the National Register.

\_\_\_ Previously Determined Eligible by the National Register.

\_\_\_ Designated a National Historic Landmark.

\_\_\_ Recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey:
#\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

\_\_\_ Recorded by Historic American Engineering Record:
#\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Primary Location of Additional Data:

[X]{.underline} State Historic Preservation Office

\_\_\_ Other State Agency

\_\_\_ Federal Agency

\_\_\_ Local Government

\_\_\_ University

\_\_\_ Other (Specify Repository):

**[10. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA]{.underline}**

Acreage of Property: approx. 0.4335 acres

UTM References: Zone Easting Northing

**A** [17 252400]{.underline} [4292700]{.underline}

Verbal Boundary Description:

> The National Historic Landmark nomination includes the brick house and
> property situated in J. Poage's Military Survey No. 418, Village of
> Ripley, Union Township, Brown County, Ohio, being all of lot 66, Part
> of Lot 67, and part of Lot 76 of the Town of Staunton (now Ripley) as
> recorded in Clermont County Book 2, Page 123, of the Brown County Deed
> Records, and being bounded and more particularly described as follows:
>
> Beginning at an iron pin set at the southwesterly corner of said Lot
> 66 at the intersection of the easterly line of Front Street and the
> northerly line of an alley; thence from said beginning point and with
> the easterly line of Front Street and the westerly line of Lot 66 and
> continuing with the westerly line of Lot 67 North 27 degrees 15
> minutes 00 seconds West a distance of 101.58 feet to an iron pin set;
> thence on a new division line through said Lot 67 and Lot 76 North 66
> degrees 48 minutes 31 seconds East a distance of 194.00 feet to an
> iron pin set on the westerly line of Easton Alley (formerly the O.R.C.
> railroad right of way) and the easterly line of Floyd W. Brookbank,
> Jr.; thence on a division line through said Lot 76 and the common line
> of said Easton Alley and said Brookbank, on a curve to the left having
> a radius of 1799.60 feet, an interior angle of 01 degrees 19 minutes
> 50 seconds, an arc length of 41.80 feet, a chord bearing of South 31
> degrees 15 minutes 23 seconds East for a chord distance of 41.80 feet
> to an iron pin set on the northerly line of Lot 77; thence with the
> northerly line of said Lot 77 South 66 degrees 48 minutes 31 seconds
> West a distance of 16.92 feet to the common corner of said Lots 66,
> 67, 76, and 77; thence with the common line of said Lot 66 and Lot 77
> South 27 degrees 15 minutes 00 seconds East a distance of 60.00 feet
> to an iron pin set at the southeasterly corner of said Lot 66 and the
> southwesterly corner of said Lot 77 and on the northerly line of an
> alley; thence with the southerly line of said Lot 66 and the northerly
> line of said alley South 66 degrees 48 minutes 31 seconds West a
> distance of 180.00 feet to the place of beginning, containing 0.2473
> Acres in Lot 66, 0.1714 Acres in Lot 67, and 0.0148 Acres in Lot 76
> for a total area of 0.4335 Acres, more or less.

Boundary Justification:

> The nominated property includes the former home and archaeological
> remains associated with John Parker and his foundry operation during
> the period of significance. The NHL boundaries coincide with property
> boundaries as specified in the 1996 deed of purchase to the John P.
> Parker Historical Society.

**[11. FORM PREPARED BY]{.underline}**

Name/Title: Judith Dulberger

Address: American History Partnership

P.O. Box 2272

Youngstown, Ohio 44504

Telephone: (330) 746-4428

Date: July 15, 1996

\* A photograph of the John P. Parker House is located on the National
Register of Historic Place's Web site at:
www.cr.nps.gov/nr/underground/oh2.htm

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS SURVEY

September 19, 1996

[^1]: A local newspaper reported on the fire, stating that "The Ripley
    Saw and Planing Mills, the dwelling and foundry of J.P. Parker and
    the Piano Factory and dwelling of Wm. Rade, together with a large
    amount of lumber and other material was destroyed by fire last
    Friday morning about two o'clock." [People's Defender]{.underline},
    August 8, 1889. Physical evidence indicates that the house was in
    fact not destroyed by fire at this time although it likely did not
    escape extensive damage.

[^2]: The preceding description was based on a site inspection of the
    property and also drew on information from the University of
    Cincinnati, Department of Architecture, "John P. Parker House:
    Historic Structure Report," 1981.

[^3]: Roy E. Finkenbine, Michael F. Hembree, and Donald Yacovone, eds.
    [Witness for Freedom: African-American Voices on Race, Slavery, and
    Emancipation]{.underline} (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
    Press, 1993),27.

[^4]: Ibid., 15.

[^5]: Ibid.

[^6]: Charles Jay Wilson, "The Negro in Early Ohio" in [Ohio
    Archaeological and Historical Quarterly]{.underline} 39 No. 4
    (1930), 719.

[^7]: George W. Knepper, [Ohio and Its People]{.underline} (Kent, Ohio:
    Kent State University Press, 1989), 206.

[^8]: Although Samuel Gist's settlement is probably most frequently
    referenced in the historical literature, there were other earlier
    settlements, for instance, in 1796 William Dunlop migrated from
    Fayette County, Kentucky to Brown County, Ohio bringing a large
    number of slaves with him. He set them free and established them on
    land about three miles north of what was to become the village of
    Ripley. William Birney, [James G. Birney and His Times]{.underline}
    (New York: Negro University Press, 1969; 1890 reprint), 432.

[^9]: U.S. Federal Census, 1850; "Transplanting Free Negroes to Ohio
    from 1815 to 1858\" in [The Journal of Negro History]{.underline} 1
    No. 3 (1916), 303; Wilbur H. Siebert, "Interview with Capt. R.C.
    Rankin," Ripley, Ohio, April 8, 1892. Wilbur H. Siebert Collection,
    Ohio Historical Society, Box 102.

[^10]: Knepper, [Ohio and Its People]{.underline}, 205.

[^11]: Wilson, "The Negro in Early Ohio," 754-762; Knepper, [Ohio and
    Its People]{.underline}, 205.

[^12]: Knepper, [Ohio and Its People]{.underline}, 207-208; Alice Felt
    Tyler, [Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History from
    the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War]{.underline}
    (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 482-483.

[^13]: The states of the Old Northwest included Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
    Michigan, and Wisconsin.

    Being third among all the states in population, Ohio dominated
    society and politics in the Old Northwest. In 1840, Ohio cast more
    electoral votes than Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan combined. Ohio
    was also the northwestern state with the longest history of
    antislavery activity. Abolitionism and religious intensity were
    especially strong in Ohio's northeastern counties, a region known as
    the Western Reserve. Vernon L. Volpe, [Forlorn Hope of Freedom: The
    Liberty Party in the Old Northwest, 1838-1848]{.underline} (Kent,
    Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1990), xix.

[^14]: Volpe, [Forlorn Hope of Freedom]{.underline} , 8.

[^15]: John R. McKivigan, [The War Against Proslavery Religion:
    Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830-1865]{.underline}
    (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 19-20; Robert William
    Fogel, [Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American
    Slavery]{.underline} (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989),
    254-264; Alice Felt Tyler, [Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American
    Social History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil
    War]{.underline} (New York: Harper & Row, 1962 edition) 41, 490-491.

[^16]: Benjamin P. Thomas, [Theodore Weld: Crusader for
    Freedom]{.underline} (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University
    Press, 1950), 43-54; Lawrence Thomas Lesick, [The Lane Rebels:
    Evangelicalism and Antislavery in Antebellum America]{.underline},
    Studies in Evangelicalism No. 2 (Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow
    Press, Inc., 1980).

[^17]: Thomas, [Theodore Weld]{.underline}, 70.

[^18]: Volpe, [Forlorn Hope of Freedom]{.underline}, 12; Knepper, [Ohio
    and Its People]{.underline} , 209.

[^19]: Knepper, [Ohio and Its People]{.underline}, 174.

[^20]: Volpe, [Forlorn Hope of Freedom]{.underline}, 4-5.

[^21]: Larry Gara, "The Underground Railroad: Legends and Reality," in
    [Timeline]{.underline} 5 No. 4 (1988): 20.

[^22]: Wilbur H. Siebert, "The Underground Railroad in Ohio" in [Ohio
    State Archaeological and Historical Society Quarterly]{.underline} 3
    No. 2 (1895): 59.

[^23]: Ibid, 59-61; Wilbur H. Siebert, "The Underground Railroad for the
    Liberation of Fugitive Slaves" in [American Historical Association
    Annual Report for 1895]{.underline} (Washington, D.C.: Government
    Printing Office, 1896), 401.

[^24]: Stuart Seely Sprague, ed. [His Promised Land: The Autobiography
    of John P. Parker Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground
    Railroad]{.underline} (New York: Norton, forthcoming 1996), 53.

[^25]: Ibid., 54.

[^26]: Eliese Bambach Stivers, [Ripley, Ohio: Its History and
    Families]{.underline} (Ripley, Ohio: Eliese Bambach Stivers, 1965),
    1-2.

[^27]: Stivers, [Ripley, Ohio]{.underline}, 69.

[^28]: Sprague, [His Promised Land]{.underline}, 51-52.

[^29]: Ibid., ii, 52.

[^30]: Sprague, [His Promised Land]{.underline}, 69.

[^31]: Ibid., 52.

[^32]: Ibid., 64.

[^33]: Ibid., 68.

[^34]: Ibid., 101.

[^35]: Ibid., 101.

[^36]: Ibid., 103-104.

[^37]: Louis Weeks, "John P. Parker: Black Abolitionist Entrepreneur,
    1827-1900\" in [Ohio History]{.underline} 80 No. 2 (1971), 158-159.

[^38]: Sprague, [His Promised Land]{.underline}, 43.

[^39]: Ibid., 50.

[^40]: Ibid., 64.

[^41]: Knepper, [Ohio and Its People]{.underline}, 206.

[^42]: Brown County, Book of Deeds I, page 34.

[^43]: Sanborn Fire Insurance Map 1890; [People's Defender]{.underline}
    (Union Township), August 8, 1889.

[^44]: Specifications for Patents, May 19, 1885, December 9, 1890 (Need
    citation).

[^45]: [The (Hillsboro, Ohio) Dispatch]{.underline}, February 10, 1900.

[^46]: Brown County Probate Records, John Parker, Case No. 15696.

[^47]: Ibid., 4.

[^48]: Weeks, "John P. Parker: Black Abolitionist Entrepreneur,"
    161-162.

[^49]: Sprague, [His Promised Land]{.underline}, 50.

[^50]: Ibid.