My Genealogy Hound

PARKER, THOMAS S. farmer and stock raiser, Sec. 14, P. O. Kane. Thomas S. Parker one of those whole souled gentleman, with whom it is a pleasure to meet, was born in Hampshire County, West Virginia, on the 28th of February, 1837; his father Jacob W. Parker was also a Virginian, a weaver by trade, he is described as a man extremely fond of traversing the forest in search of game; it is quite probable that he heard many glowing accounts of the West. Illinois was then settling up quite rapidly and thither the Virginian directed his footsteps during the Autumn of 1837; from Wheeling, Va., he embarked with his family on board a steamboat, and floated down the Ohio to its confluence with the Mississippi River, from the city of St. Louis his course lay up the Illinois River, and eventually he made his way to Greene County; he now found himself the possessor of some $5 in money, and realized that he had a large family of children that were to be clothed and provided for with the necessaries of life; he now set to work with a will and became moderately successful in life; living at a time when land rose rapidly in value he never attained that wealth that fell to the lot of many who studied the financial question more closely; he died at an advanced age, and his ashes repose in the cemetery situated in township 9, range 12. Mrs. Parker departed this life many years prior to her husband. Henry L. Parker, a prominent farmer of Greene County, and Thomas, from whom this sketch is obtained, are the only survivors of the family; as we have seen Thomas was quite young when his parents moved to Greene County, and here the youth grew to manhood, obtaining a liberal education in districts schools, he applied himself in subsequent years to the manifold duties appertaining to the farm; at the present writing he is the owner of 385 acres of valuable land in this town ship; March, 1878, he was united in marriage to Miss Lydia Gilliland, a daughter of Robert Gilliland, one of the older residents of the county.