[b]OLD NEWS[/b] - [i]December & January[/i]

During the 1850s, John P. Parker spent most of his days managing the iron foundry that he owned in Ripley, Ohio, a busy town on the shore of the Ohio River.  After sunset, he often engaged in more dangerous work: he was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, a secret network of abolitionists who aided runaway slaves fleeing north across the United States to freedom in Canada.

Parker was a former slave who, at the age of 18, purchased his own freedom in 1845 with $1,800 that he had earned by working overtime as a molder at an iron foundry in Mobile, Alabama.  He then moved north, married, and started his business in Ripley, a center of abolitionist activities.

In his twenties, Parker was a physically powerful man who could easily outwork most of the black and white employees in his iron foundry.  He was also a mentally energetic man who--without the benefit of formal schooling--had taught himself to read, write, calculate, manage a business, and invent new types of machinery.  He describes himself as always "working like a steam engine under high pressure."

Thanks to his talent and drive, Parker could have enjoyed a secure, comfortable life in Ohio.  Instead, he chose repeatedly to risk his freedom, his fortune, and his life by crossing the Ohio River at night to guide fugitive slaves to freedom.

The Kentucky side of the river, where slavery was legal, was patrolled by armed constables on the lookout for runaways and their abolitionist accomplices.  Although Parker tried to keep his illegal activities secret, his Underground Railroad exploits became the stuff of local legend, and trees on the Kentucky side of the river were plastered with notices offering a $1,000 reward for Parker's capture, "dead or alive."  Parker believed that if Kentucky constables ever managed to catch him alive, they were likely to shoot him down.

Parker's hatred for the institution of slavery was only part of what motivated him to run that risk.  He said: "There was an excitement about the game that appealed to me, in my younger days, and I really believe I enjoyed the nightly adventures with my ever-changing flock."

In an interview with a journalist decades after the events that he described, Parker recounted one of his early rescues, which illustrated the difficulties that an Underground Railroad conductor might expect to encounter.

This particular adventure began when Tom Collins, a white coffin maker in Ripley, knocked at Parker's door in the middle of the night to report that a party of refugees was hiding in the woods in Kentucky about 20 miles south of the Ohio River.  They had been heading north from central Kentucky when their leader had been captured; without his guidance, the runaways were helpless.

A slave who lived near the woodlot where the fugitives were hiding had sent word of their plight north via a "grapevine" of slaves who assisted the Underground Railroad.  One of these slaves had rowed across the Ohio River in a stolen skiff to bring the news to Ripley.

Parker estimated that it would take two nights of travel for him to reach the runaways and the lead them back to the Ohio River.  He told Collins that he would hide the slaves near the river until sunset three days later.  Collins would hen row across the river under cover of darkness to pick them up.

Parker jammed a pair of pistols into his pockets, slid a hunting knife under his belt, and walked to the riverbank, where the messenger was waiting with his stolen skiff.

The messenger, who needed to be back at his master's plantation before dawn, rowed Parker across the river and then led him to the cabin of another slave, who knew where the fugitives were hiding.

Dawn was breaking, so Parker spent the day sleeping at a hidden spot in the woods.  After dark, he was led to the runaways--eight men and two women.  "They were paralyzed with fear since the loss of their leader, and huddled together like children," Parker recalled.  "They were so badly demoralized some of them wanted to give themselves up rather than faced the unknown...  One of the men set up a wail when I had them ready to start.  Drawing a pistol, I sternly gave him the choice of picking up his things and coming along, or be shot down in cold blood.  After that show of force, I had my charges under my control."

Avoiding the roads, which were patrolled by constables, Parker led the fugitives north through the dense woods.  According to Parker: "They were hopeless woodsmen; try as I would, I could not keep them from breaking down the bushes and stepping on dry sticks, the cracking of which echoed through the woods like an alarm bell.  I soon discovered I would have to keep them in the ravines where the ferns and moss grew."

One of the men became thirsty and announced he would go looking for a spring near the road.  Parker told him not to try it, but the man went off anyway.

Parker recalled: "Fortunately, I moved the party ahead.  He had hardly got out of sight when I heard a shout.  And he came racing through the brush pursued by two white men.

"As soon as I heard the shout I made my party lie down.  The man, forgetting the location of our party, went flying by where we were lying.  Shortly there was a shot, which I could see disturbed our crowd.  Drawing my pistol I quietly told them I would shoot the first one that dared make a noise, which had a quieting effect.

"Shortly, there was a crackling of the brush.  Peering cautiously through the bushes, I saw our man being led by a rope.  He had his arms tied behind his back.  Evidently, the fugitive had not betrayed the presence of his friends, because the three men went on their way, looking neither to the right nor the left, and we were soon lost in the undergrowth."

Fearing that the captured man might reveal that he had been traveling with a group of runaways, Parker decided to push on rapidly.  "Ordering the crowd to their feet, I impressed upon them that I was in greater danger than they were, and that unless they listened to me, I would leave them just where they were and save myself.  Everything went well until we came to a road.  Hiding my party, I advanced to make a survey of the situation.  I found a well-traveled road which I was sure I could not get across in daylight.  Now the party wanted to push ahead, and it was only after more threats that I got them safely into the brush.  It was a good thing that we did, for we had hardly hid before a party of white men on horseback passed along in sight of where I was lying.  From time to time, wagons rumbled by, so that I did not dare to let any of my party get out of sight, or in fact move without my consent."

Because the group was traveling by daylight, it reached the Ohio River 24 hours ahead of schedule, so there was no boat awaiting Parker's arrival.  He began searching along the riverbank for a boat.  Parker recalled: "I had no alternative than to push straight down the bank and take my chances.  My chances proved very poor, because I ran into a patrolman.  Seeing the size of our party, he turned and ran way.  I knew that the whole countryside would soon be buzzing like a hornet's nest.

"Making my people throw away their bundles, I started along the bank as fast as I could go, with the fugitives following.  I could see the lights of the town of Ripley on the far shore, but they might as well have been on the moon so far as being a relief to me in my present situation.  I knew there were always boats about the ferry landing.  My one hope was to beat my pursuers to them.  One of the women fell exhausted.

"I only stopped long enough to tell her to follow us if she could, because I could not wait.  Surely enough, at the ferry I found one boat.  The next thing was to find the oars.  I sent the whole crowd stomping through the brush in search of them."

The woman who had fallen was able to catch up to the group during this pause.  

Parker recounted: "While we were wildly searching, I heard the cry of hounds.  The patrol had worked up faster than I thought.  Leaping into the boat to tear up a seat to use as a paddle, I stumbled over the oars, which I had missed in the dark.  With a halloo, I piled the crowd into the boat, only to find it so small it would not carry all of us.  Two men were left on the bank.

"As I started to push off, leaving the poor fellows on the bank to their cruel fate, one of the women set up a cry that one of the men on the bank was her husband.  Then I witnessed an act of heroism and self-sacrifice that made me proud of my race.  For one of the single men in the boat, hearing the cry of the woman for her husband, arose without a word and walked quietly to the bank.  The husband sprang into the boat as I pushed off.

"As I rowed away to safety I saw dimly the silent but helpless martyr.  We were still far from the Ohio shore when I saw lights around the spot where we had left the men, followed by shouts, by which I knew the poor fellows had been captured in sight of the promised land."

When they stepped ashore at Ripley, Parker and the fugitives were still in danger.  The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 had made it a federal crime to assist runaway slaves in any state of the Union, and federal marshals were empowered to arrest them and return them to their owners.  Law officers sometimes led posses from Kentucky into Ripley to search for runaways who might be hidden in the homes of notorious abolitionists like Parker and Tom Collins, to coffin maker.  It was to Tom Collins's house that Parker led his party of fugitives.

Since a posse appeared to be gathering on the Kentucky side of the river, Collins and Parker immediately took the runaways to Redoak, about five miles from Ripley, where they handed them over to another Underground Railroad conductor, Rev. James Gilliand.

Parker recalled: "There we left them, which was the last time we ever saw or heard of that crowd."

Parker was one of the most active conductors on the Underground Railroad.  Prior to the American Civil War, he escorted more than 500 fugitive slaves across the Ohio River from Kentucky to Ripley.  When the war began, he stepped up his Underground Railroad activities, but instead of sending fugitive slaves to Canada from Ripley, he sent them to Union Army camps where they could work as laborers or enlist (after 1863) in the Union Army.

After the Civil War, his business prospered, and he patented a number of inventions, including the John P. Parker tobacco press and harrow (or "pulverizer") patented in 1884 and 1885.

Parker and his wife raised six children, four boys and two girls, all of whom graduated from college, becoming lawyers or teachers.

Having survived countless dangerous adventures, Parker died of natural causes in 1900, at 73.