Parker

Western Spotsylvania County, 1863

     Parker (also known as Parker's Store, or Parkers) is a small community in western Spotsylvania near the Orange County line at the intersection of modern Orange Plank Road and Windy Acres Lane. In the map detail shown above, "Parkers" can be seen at the far left of the image. The solid line at that location represents Orange Plank Road; the dashed line indicates the extent of the grading that had been completed for what would one day be the Potomac, Fredericksburg and Piedmont Railroad. This crossroads was undoubtedly named for a member of the Parker family, but for whom, exactly, no one seems to know (at least, I have not been able to find out). Although this sparsely populated part of Spotsylvania may seem insignificant on the map, Parker has a very rich history.
     During the Battle of the Wilderness, Confederate General A.P Hill marched his troops from their encampment near Orange County Courthouse to Orange Plank Road in order to confront Union troops nearer Brock Road. Not long after the lead elements of Hill's corps passed Parker, they were met by Colonel John Hammond and the 5th New York Cavalry. A brief fight ensued, but the mounted Federals were no match for the number of Confederates in their front, and were forced to retreat. Hill's men then resumed their march toward the farm of the Widow Tapp. A few days later, troops commanded by Confederate General R.H. Anderson proceeded south from Parker to Catharpin Road, just below Shady Grove Church, in a race to prevent the Federal army from reaching Spotsylvania Courthouse first.
   

Parker as it looked in 1940

     The drawing above, showing Parker as it was 80 years ago, was done by Spotsylvania resident Vickie Neely based on the memory of her mother, Shirley Apperson Trigg. Mrs. Trigg grew up in Parker during the 1930's and 1940's on the Apperson farm, shown at the left of the image. The straight road through the center of the drawing is Orange Plank Road.
     The photograph below, taken in 1954, shows the house of Roy and Violet Carpenter at left, and the house and store of Myrtle Sullivan at right:

Parker, 1954

     The growth of the Parker community received a significant boost from the arrival of the Moore, Kronk and Barnes families in the 1860's and 1870's from Beaver County, Pennsylvania. In February 1869, William and Isabel Morrow of Beaver County bought 800 acres from Irish immigrant and Fredericksburg merchant, Patrick McCracken. This property included what was referred to as the Parker Store farm, on which stood the former Mattaponi post office, which had been discontinued in 1866. Shortly after Mr. Morrow bought this land, his son-in-law and daughter--Joseph (1842-1912) and Mary Ann Moore (1838-1903)--moved to this place with their two oldest children, Kate and Alice Iona. The Moores had four more children once they moved to Virginia, including a son, William Morrow Moore (1871-1957).
     Joseph Moore farmed his land for the next 40 years. He also built a store on his property, in which a new post office, named Parker, was established. Joseph was postmaster of this office until 1892. That year, the post office was moved to the store of William Cleveland Reynolds (1855-1922), which was conveniently built next to the tracks of the Potomac, Fredericksburg and Piedmont Railroad. After Mr. Reynolds death in 1922, the post office was moved back to the Moore store, which had been owned by William Morrow Moore since his father had died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1912. William's sister, Alice, was the postmistress there until she retired in 1940. Mr. Reynold's son, Reuben, operated a drug store in his father's old grocery store.
     Before she became a postmistress, Alice Moore Patton had been married to gold miner and oil man, John R. Patton, whom she married in 1894. John Patton also speculated in real estate, and in 1890 had bought 135 acres of what had once been a part of Greenfield, my family's old plantation located where Fawn Lake subdivision now stands. When he died, Reverend R.V. Owens wrote an elaborate and heart-felt obituary for the February 8, 1906 edition of The Daily Star:

     In 1892, William Morrow Moore married Annie Barnes, a daughter of Eli and Mary Ann Barnes. Annie and their infant child died the following year. In January 1900, William married Mary Etta Kronk, daughter of neighbor Lucius Marcus Kronk. William's sister, Kate, married William, a son of Eli and Mary Ann Barnes. Their daughter, Onie, married neighbor Eugene Cathwell Garner in 1934.
    

Parker School

Caption of Parker School photo

     In June 1889, Joseph and Mary Anne Moore deeded one acre to the Chancellor school district of Spotsylvania County. This is where the Parker School would be built. The caption to the photograph above, written by Madora Chewning Stephens, reads: "The old 1 room school house at Parkers. This one was upon the hill across the road from Mrs. Patton's house (where Wayne Miller lives now.") The other school shown in the drawing of Parker above was a private school attended by the Reynolds children.

Joseph and Barbara Kronk (Ancestry)

     Joseph Kronk was born in Beaver County, Pennsylvania in 1831. The 1860 census shows that he was still single and living in his father's household, working as a blacksmith. Both he and his brother Lewis registered for the draft in the spring of 1863, although I do not know whether or not they served in the Union army. Joseph married Barbara Brunton, probably in 1865, as their son Philmore was born in 1866. Sometime before June 1870, the Kronks and Barbara's mother moved to Spotsylvania. Joseph bought from William Morrow 216 acres on Orange Plank Road adjacent to the property of William Beazley (shown as "Beasley" in the 1863 map detail at the top of this post).
     In 1870, Joseph's brother, Lewis Marcus Kronk (1843-1922) was still living in Beaver County with his young bride, Elizabeth Barnes. Lewis was working as a blacksmith, an occupation he continued to work at after moving to Spotsylvania sometime in the 1870's. Lewis and Elizabeth lived next to Joseph's farm and raised eight children.
     Both Joseph and Lewis Kronk, as well as Eli Barnes, were customers of the saw mill business of my great grandfather, George Washington Estes Row. Their names appear in his account ledgers:

     Among my great grandfather's papers is a bill from Lewis Kronk for some smithy work he had done, and also a note written asking for payment, which reads: "Mr. Rowe Dear Sir, I would like very much if you could let me have what is due me as I want to get clover seed and am needing it badly for that purpose. Yours with respect LM Kronk Parkers Store Va."

     Joseph Kronk was a deeply religious man, and in January 1885 he deeded land to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South for the construction of Grace Methodist Church, which still stands:

Grace Methodist Church (Courtesy of Vickie Neely)

Grace Methodist Church (Courtesy of Vickie Neely)

Interior of Grace Methodist Church (Find-A-Grave)

     Madora Chewning Stephens, who grew up at nearby Mount View farm on today's Hill-Ewell Drive, wrote a memoir of Grace Methodist Church:

     Below are photographs of Madora and her parents:

Madora Chewning Stephens

Myrtle and Irvin Chewning

     Joseph Kronk's daughter, Mary, married Judson Hammond Pulliam in March 1900. Judson was the son of Thomas Richard and Sarah Pulliam. Thomas Pulliam was also the father of the notorious Phenie Tapp. Judson and Mary Pulliam's daughter, Violet, married Roy Carpenter in 1920. They lived in the Carpenter house shown both in the hand-drawn map above and in the photo of Parker taken in 1954.

Roy and Violet Carpenter (Ancestry)

     The Kronks appeared in the newspapers much more often than other Parker residents of their era. Below is a report of remarkably good news for the Kronk brothers, whose name appears to be of Dutch origin:

Staunton Spectator and Vindicator, 8 April 1897

    
     When Lewis Kronk's daughter, Mary Etta, married William Moore in 1900, the wedding was described in one of local papers:

The Daily Star, 23 January 1900

     Lewis Kronk probably had ample opportunity to regret the cap pistol he bought for his son Charles for Christmas in 1902:

The Daily Star, 17 January 1903

The Daily Star, 22 January 1922

Charles Kronk did indeed survive his bout with tetanus, and lived until 1906.
     And finally there is this item describing a very serious injury to Joseph Kronk. At the time of his accident, Joseph was 78 years old, not 87 as reported:

The Free Lance, 13 November 1909

     Eli Barnes (1819-1903) married Mary Ann Metts in Beaver County, Pennsylvania and moved to Parker some time between 1870 and 1880. His daughter, Annie, married William Moore in September 1892. She died a year later either during or shortly after the birth of her first child, who also did not survive. Eli and Mary Ann's son, Martin, married William Moore's sister, Kate, in October 1883. They had several children including Onie, who married neighbor Eugene Garner. The other Barnes son, James, never married. In the early 1920's, he bought Greenfield, my family's old farm, which changed hands many times over the years. After he died of pneumonia in 1925, Greenfield passed to his brother, William, who owned it a few years before selling it.
     One of the keys to the prosperity of Parker over the years was the fact that the Potomac, Fredericksburg and Piedmont Railroad, completed in 1877, ran right through the middle of it. The train made daily runs between Fredericksburg and the town of Orange. Here is a typical schedule from that time:

The Daily Star, 4 February 1903

     After Agnes Moore Patton retired as postmistress in 1940, the post office move across the road to the store of John Lawrence Sullivan. His wife, the former Myrtle B. Paytes, served as the last postmistress of the Parker post office. In 1958, the post office was discontinued, and its operations were transferred to the Mine Run office.

John Chiles Mitchell (Courtesy of Vickie Neely)

     Finally, a few words about the Mitchell-Apperson farm. Caroline County native John Chiles Mitchell moved to Spotsylvania county about 1869 and lived in the Courtland district for forty years. About 1909 he moved to Parker, where he lived until his death in 1917. That property then passed to John Henry Apperson, a blacksmith who worked for the CCC  in Spotsylvania during the 1930's. Earlier, I alluded to the fact that Shirley Apperson Trigg was a daughter of Mr. Apperson. By coincidence, her first husband was Louis Jackson Mitchell, a great-grandson of John Chiles Mitchell. Jack Mitchell was tragically killed with ten other seamen when a boiler exploded aboard the USS Bennington in 1953.