John P. Parker might have been forgotten if not for the efforts to save his house in Ripley, Ohio. The former slave operated his own iron foundry in Ripley. At night, he acted as “an extractor ...

The first story, recorded in “His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground Railroad," tells that Ripley abolitionist John Parker helping ...

The Parker House served as an important stop on the Underground Railroad and has operated under the John P. Parker Historical Society since 1996. John P. Parker was born into slavery in 1827.

–From “His Promised Land,” the autobiography of John P. Parker (1827-1900), a slave who purchased his freedom and became an Underground Railroad conductor John P. Parker was a prescient man ...

John Parker risked his success, freedom, and life to help hundreds of people escape their enslavement. As an Ohio newspaper wrote upon Parker’s death in 1900, “a more fearless creature never ...