Escambia County AlArchives Biographies.....Parker, Henry T. August 26 1838 - living in 1893
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 22, 2004, 11:45 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
    HENRY T. PARKER.-Among the successful business men of Escambia county,
deserving of especial mention, is Henry T. Parker, who for a number of years has
been prominently identified with its material prosperity. Mr. Parker is the son
of George and Elizabeth (Odon) Parker, and was born in Conecuh county, Ala., on
the 26th day of August, 1838. The father was a native of Georgia, born about the
year 1812, the son of John Parker, also a native of Georgia, and member of an
old English family that settled in Maryland many years ago. Emery Odon, father
of Mrs. Parker, was for many years a well known resident of the county of
Conecuh. George and Elizabeth Parker were married about the year 1837, and had a
large family of thirteen children, namely: Henry T., whose name introduces this
sketch; Robert B., deceased; Samuel R., who served in the Confederate army, was
captured at battle of Missionary Ridge, and died a prisoner of war; Charlotte,
wife of J. H. Reid; John B.; Emery; Wilson A.; Miles M.; Augustus C.; Elizabeth,
wife of T. T. Roberts; Francis; Florence, wife of H. H. Lovelace, and George M.
The family was raised principally in Conecuh county, where the father's demise
occurred in December, 1886; the mother is still living at the old homestead, in
the town of Roberts. Henry T. Parker was reared to man-hood in his native
county, began life for himself at the age of twenty-one, and at the breaking out
of the war, espoused the southern cause and served as a gallant soldier in the
Fifteenth Alabama cavalry from May, 1862, till the final surrender in 1865. Like
many other brave sons of the South, the close of the great struggle found Mr.
Parker in very straitened circumstances, financially, his total wealth at that
time being in a single two dollar and fifty cent gold piece, a little more than
one-half which was spent for a bushel of cow peas. With this insignificant sum
he again embarked in life, and how well he has succeeded is attested by his
present comfortable property, which consists of a block of valuable business
houses in Brewton, 18,000 acres of fine timber land, with mills, in Florida,
which with personal property makes him one of Escambia county's wealthiest and
most substantial citizens. Since the war Mr. Parker has been principally engaged
in milling and lumbering, and at this time is in partnership in the timber
business with E. M. Lovelace, under the firm name of Parker & Lovelace, one of
the leading firms of the kind in the southern part of the state. Mr. Parker
possesses business qualifications of a very high order, and his career presents
a series of successes to which he can point with pardonable pride. He has always
been averse to seeking notoriety of any kind, eschews political preferment, and
prefers to spread his life in quiet and unobtrusive attention to his various
enterprises. In politics he is a democrat, but not a partisan, and he is an
active member of the Masonic and K. of P. fraternities. The married life of Mr.
Parker began in 1859, when he contracted a matrimonial alliance with Sarah A.,
daughter of F. M. Brantley, of Conecuh county, who bore him nine children, viz.:
Frank M., a successful dentist, of Los Angeles, Cal.; Edwin L., graduate of
Tulane university, New Orleans, and practicing physician, of Brewton; Elbert R.,
in the blacksmithing business at Brewton; Anna Lillian, wife of Charles W.
Robbins, editor of Brewton Banner; Laura, a student at Judson Female institute;
Henry Travis; Samuel Barnes, and Dossie J. The mother of these children died in
May, 1879, and in 1881 Mr. Parker took a second wife, Martha P. Rankin, of
Brewton, of which union there has been no issue.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 988-989
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI

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