Freestone County, Texas
Biographies 





Biography of Elder William Henry Parks, D.D.

[Elder William Henry Parks was part-time pastor of First Baptist Church of Fairfield
  from 1870 to 1872.
 
  His son Henry Parks (13 Dec 1870-27 Jun 1872) is buried at Fairfield Cemetery
  in Freestone Co., TX.]

[Source:
History of the Waco Baptist Association of Texas
By James Lafayette Walker, J. P. Lumpkin
Waco, Texas; Byrne-Hill Printing House, 1897]

ELDER W. H. PARKS, D.D.,

came from Alabama to Texas with his father at the age of 14 years. He was born
in Monroe county, Ga., August 2, 1836.  His father, Isaac Parks, moved to Chambers
county, Ala., in 1844, and in 1853 to Anderson, Grimes county, Texas.  W. H. Parks
professed faith in Christ in August, 1850, and was baptized by Elder Willis Jones.
He entered Baylor University at Independence, in the spring of 1854, and graduated
in June, 1856. Returning home, became superintendent of his father's farm, and 
at the same time read law. At the opening of the first law school of Baylor
University in 1857, he entered as a student, and graduated in a class of thirteen
in 1858. He was licensed to practice law by the district court of Washington
county at its fall term, 1857, Hon. R. E. B. Baylor, presiding. In 1859 opened a
law office in Bonham, Fannin county, Texas. He there met Miss Josephine Drake of 
Dallas, student of the Bonham high school. They were married June 11, 1861. He 
entered the Confederate service in the fall of the same year, and served under
General Tom Green till the death of that officer; then under General J. P. Majors
to the close of the war. In 1865 his ever helpful wife taught school in Collin 
county. From the day of his baptism he had felt it his duty to preach, but his
aspirations in another direction smothered back his impressions of duty. His 
sense of duty grew till at length, August 3, 1867, he submitted to ordination,
and was, by the Spring Creek Baptist church, set apart to the responsible office
of New Testament bishop. After preaching nearly two years for churches in Collin
and Dallas counties, he accepted an appointment as missionary of the Trinity 
River Association, with headquarters at Fairfield. He declined re-appointment
and accepted the care of Fairfield church and three other churches, where he 
labored three years, after which, in January, 1873, he moved to Mexia. ...