Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

John C. Parker Papers, Accession #2885-a, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The Parker collection was deposited in the Library on March 4, 1948, by Mr. John Crump Parker of Franklin, Virginia, who then made the collection a gift to the Library on January 3, 1980. An addition of ca. thiry items was given to the Library on February 5, 1951, by Mr. Parker and is held under Manuscripts Department number 2885-a.

Scope and Content Information

The Parker collection consists of ca. 5 linear shelf feet of papers (21 Hollinger boxes), 1874-1936, of John Crafford Parker, chiefly generated by his law practice and insurance business in Southampton County, Virginia. Parker was born in 1862 and attended the University of Virginia Law School from 1882 to 1884. After recieving his degree, he set up practice in Franklin, Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for Southampton County ca. 1899. He was elected a delegate from the Franklin Magisterial District to the 1904 State Democratic Convention and campaigned to have himself selected as delegate to the Democratic National Convention in St. Louis, Missouri that same year. In 1916 he was elected a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in St. Louis. In addition, Parker, a prominent Virginia Methodist, was a member of the General Conference's Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He died at the age of fifty-six in December 1918.

The collection contains Parker's legal, business, and personal papers. The legal papers consist of case files and miscellaneous paper and include correspondence, legal documents or copies of documents, receipts, financial records, work sheets, notes, and sketches of property.

Mr. Parker changed his insurance firm to a partnership to be known as J.C. Paker & Sons, with his sons John Crump Parker and Alexander W. Parker being junior partners prior to 1918. Some of their papers from that period and after their father's death appear in the collection.

The legal case files chiefly concern the settlement of estates, including assistance to administrators and executors, the clarification of property rights, the formation of corporations, Parker's legal advisorship to a large company, guardianships of minors, bankruptcy, debt collection, divorce, and receivership. His insurance papers concern applications from his clients for surety bonds and fire insurance.

Most of Parker's clients lived in Franklin or Southampton County, Virginia. The major files of legal records in the collection are those pertaining to B.K. Basho, Camp Manufacturing Company, Sallie Darden, Bessie Leigh, Martha J. Newman, J.D. Pretlow, the Southern Railway, the estates of J.D., Nannie J., and P.S. Thomas, Sallie L. Hayes, and the Wynne children guardianship. The case file on Camp Manufacturing Company, Franklin, Virginia, one of the largest lumber processing companies in the early part of the twentieth century, contains the greatest number of items.

Parker's personal papers consist chiefly of his correspondence with relatives, friends, and political associates. Also included are papers concerning his work with the Board of Education of the Methodist Church and as treasurer for Southampton County. Topics mentioned in the personal correspondence include state and national politics, the Methodist Church, yellow fever in 1899, political difficulties in Mexico in 1913, investments in Cuba, and neutrality and World War I. Included in this section are several letters from Richard E. Byrd, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1912, and letters from University of Virginia faculty members John Barbee Minor, William Minor Lile, William A. Lambeth, and Raleigh C. Minor. Parker wrote in 1912 to L.J. Bain of the Virginia House of Delegates expressing his interest in establishing a university for women near Charlottesville. Also included are letters from John Stewart Bryan, William Jennings Bryan (on divisions in the Democratic Party in 1900), James Cannon, John Wood Fishburne, John Warwick Daniel, Edward Everett Holland, Eppa Hunton, William Atkinson Jones, J.E. McCulloch of the Southern Sociological Conference, Raleigh Colston Minor, Andrew Jackson Montague, Charles Triplett O'Ferrall, John Garland Pollard, Edward Watts Saunders, Henry Carter Stuart, James Hoge Tyler, and Henry St. George Tucker. Family correspondents include Parker's brothers, H.C. Parker and George H. Parker; George Parker's wife; Parker's sister, Jessie Mary Parker; sister-in-law "Nannie";and his nephew, Jesse Parker. Letters in the family correspondence chiefly concern personal and financial problems and often relate to Parker's role as the family's legal advisor.

Also included in the collection are a postal card album, a nutrition notebook, bar exam coaching notes, a draft of the Franklin Academy Company's charter application, and ledgers for insurance policies, guardianship accounts, estate settlements, and stocks.

Organization

The collection is divided into two series: I. Legal Papers, and II. Personal and Political Papers.

Series I is divided into three sub-series: A. Legal Case Files, arranged alphabetically; B. Miscellaneous Legal Papers, arranged chronologically; and C. Insurance Papers.

The sub-series of Miscellaneous Legal Papers is small and generally consists of a chronological run of documents from various cases for which there are too few documents to warrant establishment of a case file in the Legal Case Files Sub-series. However, in this sub-series there are occasional groups of papers pertianing to the same case that have been drawn together in paper insert folders and filed by the date of the earliest item.

In the Insurance Papers Sub-series the papers are divided between papers regarding surety bonds, which are arranged chronologically with case file insert folders, and paper regarding property insurance whihc are arranged alphabetically in case files. Also present in this sub-series is a bound volume containing a register of insurance policies and diagrams of buildings and the Parker sons' contract to sell the insurance business.

In Series I, related information may be found in all three sub-series.

Series II is divided into two sub-series: A. Correspondence and B. Memorabilia and Miscellaneous Papers.