2006-06
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/31/2006
David Bigelow Parker (1842-1910) Enlisted at the age of eighteen as a member of the 72nd New York State Volunteers. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and was placed by General Joe Hooker as chief of the postal service of the Army of the Potomac. U.S. Grant noticed Parker’s ability and had hiim carry the personal dispatches between General Grant and President Lincoln after the Battle of the Wilderness. In 1863 it was David Parker who introduced the money order system in the Army. In 1865 on the day Richmond fell, Parker took control of the post office there and re-established its services. After the war Parker remained in Virginia, Presidents Johnson and Grant appointed Parker as United States Marshal for Virginia. Governor Wells of Virginia made Parker a member of his staff, with the honorary title of "colonel." Parker resigned in 1874 to go into private business, but was called back to the postal service by President Grant, who asked Parker to investigate a corruption case in Louisiana involving Grant's brother-in-law. After exposing the corruption and clearing Grant's relative, Parker was sent to reorganize the postal service of California, Oregon, and Washington, while handling numerous depredation complaints. In 1876, Parker accepted the position of Chief Post Office Inspector in the Department of Mail Depredations, a unit of postal detectives. While in this position, Parker was one of a group of men who worked to initiate and perfect the railway mail service, rural free delivery, the use of registered letters, and the money order service. In 1883, President Arthur offered Parker the position as Postmaster at Washington, D.C., but Parker decided to join the Bell Telephone Company, an infant enterprise at that time. Parker started with the New England Telephone Company in Boston. He then became general manager of the New York Telephone Company. Because of deteriorating health, he next moved to the position of vice-president and general manager of the Bell Telephone Company of Buffalo, near his home. Suffering from severe rheumatism, Parker retired in the summer of 1898. After receiving extended treatment at Virginia Hot Springs, Parker returned to Ellicottville for the last ten years of his life, during which he lived as an invalid. In the last years of his life, Parker dictated his reminiscences, published by the Boston firm of Small, Maynard and Company in 1912 as A Chautauqua boy in 61 and afterward, with an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart. Parker's life story was recently augmented by Patricia Appleyard Parker in A Chautauqua family: 1800-1996 (Jamestown, NY: The author, 1996). This account is largely based on the research of Ronald L. Brake, Sr., who has also initiated a campaign to have Parker represented by a United States Postal Stamp. This wonderful grouping includes three volumes of original typed manuscript of “A Chautauqua Boy in ‘61 and Afterward. Reminiscences by David B. Parker” as dictated to Torrance Parker who writes at the begining of Volume I “My father dictated this book in the Winter of 1908-9 and reviewed it with me in July 1909 and July 1910. In July 1910, I went through his papers and found the pictures and documents I have inserted herein. Torrance Parker.” which includes 425 pages quarto in two volumes with several original documents and photographs tipped in, as well as a companion volume titled “A Chautauqua Boy Vol. III” and contains nothing but original documents and newspaper clippings and dozens of pages of corrected manuscript. These three original volumes are accompanied by a copy of the book published in 1912, a fine finished product. Also included in this extensive grouping are dozens of war-date to 1880’s letters and documents pertaining to Parker’s postal career. Some of these documents are: Letter Signed, “Geo. W. McLellan” 1p. quarto, April 6, 1865, Post Office Department, Contract Office, and read “I was much gratified to receive your telegram yesterday announcing the fact of your having taken possession of the post office at Richmond. You have the thanks of the Department for your promptness in this matter. ...If you have an account of the mail matter in Richmond and Petersburg which was taken possession of by the military authorities, you will please send a copy to this office. It is desirable that the Richmond Post Office should be put in operation as soon as possible, and upon the return of the Post Master General from Ohio the last of this week...” Fine...plus; Manuscript Document Signed, “W. Dennison” Postmaster General, 1p. octavo, June 10, 1865, and reads “Know ye: That David B. Parker Esq is hereby designated as a Special Agent of this Department and by my direction travels on its business...” With blue “Post Office Department” seal....plus; Letter Signed, “Geo. W. McLellan” July 3, 1865, on Post Office Department lettersheet, addressed to Parker, in part: “...You will, as early as possible, ascertain and report to this Department the condition of the various railroads in Virginia; which of them, at this time, are carrying mails; and which, if any, carry any other than mails for the use of the military...The Department is informed that the railroad from Danville, Va. to Greensboro, N.C. is in the possession of the Treasury Department. It is desirable to send mials by that route...” Fine...plus; various other war-date Special Agent documents and circulars and more. All Good to Fine. A fantastic and historic grouping pertaining to the Federal mail service as well as a soldiers war experience.
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