Samuel Parker (missionary)

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Samuel Parker

Born April 23, 1779
Ashfield, Massachusetts
Died March 21, 1866
New York
Occupation missionary
Spouse N. Sears
Jerusha Lord
For other persons named Samuel Parker, see Samuel Parker (disambiguation).

Reverend Samuel Parker (1779-1866) was an American missionary in Oregon Country. He scouted locations for missions, including a location for the Whitman Mission in present Washington state and traveled with Marcus Whitman. He was the first Presbyterian missionary in Oregon.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Samuel Parker was born on April 23, 1779, in Ashfield, Massachusetts, to Thankful Merchant Parker and Elisha Parker.[1] He was educated on the East Coast where he graduated in 1806 from Williams College, and in 1810 from Andover Theological Seminary.[1] Parker was ordained as a minister in 1812, and then taught and preached in New York until 1833.[1] There he married his first wife, Miss N. Sears, and in 1815 he married a second time to Jerusha Lord, with whom he would father three children.[1] One son’s name was Samuel J. Parker.

[edit] Missionary

After the famed incident involving four Flathead tribesmen asking William Clark for religious guidance, Parker answered the call for missionaries to move to the American West in 1834.[1] In 1835, he traveled to Oregon Country with fellow missionary Marcus Whitman.[1] After preaching at the Green River rendezvous of the American Fur Company, Parker continued west while Whitman returned east.[1] During the winter of 1835 to 1836, Parker was a guest at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trade outpost on the Columbia River, Fort Vancouver.[1] He was then the first Presbyterian missionary in what would become the state of Oregon .[2] Parker would then seek out locations for the establishment of missions in the region. He traveled through the Willamette Valley and Lower Columbia Valley to select sites that were later used by the missionaries of the American Board for Foreign Missions.[1] Samuel Parker then left the region by ship, sailing first to the Sandwich Islands and then around Cape Horn to the Eastern Seaboard.[1]

[edit] Later life

Parker returned to New York and informed the Board of the best sites for missions.[1] He was then rejected for missionary work for the board due to his advanced age.[3] He published a book in 1838 describing his journey to Oregon in, Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains.[1] Samuel Parker died on March 21, 1866, and is buried in Ithaca, New York.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corning, Howard M. Dictionary of Oregon History. Binfords & Mort Publishing, 1956.
  2. ^ Carey, Charles Henry (1922). History of Oregon 1. Pioneer Historical Publishing Co.. 
  3. ^ Long, Bill. At the Whitman Mission IV. Accessed September 14, 2007.