He was inspector general of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia and commander of the State Guard regiments deployed during the Boston Police Strike.

[1] He was the scion of a wealthy family of Massachusetts textile industrialists;[2] his father, Charles Henry Parker, was treasurer of the Suffolk Savings Bank and a one-time member of the Boston Common Council.

In 1906, Governor Curtis Guild Jr. appointed Parker assistant inspector general with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Parker order the cavalry to establish dead lines in areas where crowds were collecting and to keep people moving while using as little violence as possible.

[5] On January 30, 1908, Mayor George A. Hibbard removed fire commissioner Benjamin W. Wells from office and named Parker to replace him.

[12] Parker worked as a real estate broker, was treasurer of the Ipswich Mills and New England Home for Little Wanderers, vice president of the Suffolk Savings Bank, president of the Home for Aged Women, and a director of the Merchants National Bank.