John Parker (abolitionist)

John P. Parker (c. 1827 – January 30, 1900) was an American abolitionist, inventor, iron moulder and industrialist.

Parker, who was African American, helped hundreds of slaves to freedom in the Underground Railroad resistance movement based in Ripley, Ohio.

Born into slavery under the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, at the age of eight John was forced to walk to Richmond, where he was sold at the slave market to a physician from Mobile, Alabama.

[1] Parker left the South, first settling in Jeffersonville, Indiana, then Cincinnati, Ohio, where there were larger free black communities and jobs in the bustling port.

[2] In Ripley, Parker joined the resistance movement, known as the Underground Railroad, whose members aided slaves escaping across the river from Kentucky to get further North to freedom; some chose to go to Canada.

Parker managed the company, which manufactured engines, Dorsey's patent reaper and mower, and sugar mill.