[2] Samuel Parkman, George's father and family patriarch, had bought up low-lying lands and income properties in Boston's West End.

The most notable was George's sister Elizabeth Willard Parkman, whose spouse Robert Gould Shaw (1776 – 1853), grandfather of Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863, Union Army colonel during the American Civil War), grew his wife's share of the fortune to become the senior partner in the most powerful commercial house in a city glutted with the proceeds of the China Trade.

[6] The eleven Parkman scions united in marriage with the Beacon Hill families of Blake, Cabot, Mason, Sturgis, Tilden, and Tuckerman.

[8] After returning to Boston, he traveled aboard the USS Constitution to Europe and was under the charge of a former Bostonian, Benjamin Thompson, who introduced him to the Minister to France, Joel Barlow.

Pinel received me kindly, and inquired with much interest after Benjamin Rush, who had lately written his book on Diseases of the Mind," Parkman wrote from Paris.

The War of 1812 called for the service of young men and Parkman “received a commission as a surgeon in a regiment of the third brigade belonging to the first division of the Massachusetts militia.” He began in South Boston and simultaneously served as a physician to the poor with a desire to replicate the practices of Pinel and Esquirol.

[11] Parkman believed that psychiatric institutions should reflect a residence-like setting, where patients could enjoy hobbies and socializing and participating in household chores, as permitted.

In 1817, he wrote two papers, Remarks on Insanity and The Management of Lunatics in an effort to convince the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital that he could supervise an asylum they were considering opening.

Money lending and real estate augmented his income; he also sold the land for the new Harvard Medical School and the Charles Street Jail.

[15] Parkman was a well-known figure in the streets of Boston, which he walked daily, collecting his rents (a thrifty man, he did not own a horse).

[citation needed] John White Webster (May 20, 1793 – August 30, 1850), a professor of chemistry and geology at Harvard Medical School, was convicted of killing Parkman in a sensational trial.