Parker, Isaac

1838 – He was born on the 15th day of October this year outside Barnesville, in Belmont County, Ohio. Still on the edge of the frontier in the early 1840s, southeastern Ohio was primarily an agricultural area.

1859 - At the age of seventeen, he decided to study law. His legal training consisted of a combination of apprenticeship and self directed study. Isaac read law with a Barnesville attorney, passing his bar exam in this year.

1861 – He was operating on his own, working in the municipal and country criminal courts. The local courts afforded Parker not only experience, but community recognition. In April of this year, he won election to the post of city attorney as a Democrat. He married a Saint Joseph girl, Mary O'Toole, on December 12 of the same year.

1862 – Parker was reelected as city attorney in this year and 1863.

1864 - In this year, he formally split from the Democratic Party when he ran for county prosecutor of the Ninth Missouri Judicial District as a Republican. In the fall of the same year, he served as a member of the Electoral College, casting his vote for Abraham Lincoln.

1868 – This year, he sought and won a six-year term as judge of the Twelfth Missouri Circuit. The new judge gained experience and habits in this position that he would put to good use in the years to come.

1870 -Political ambition would catapult Parker from a Missouri judgeship to Congress in this year. He was nominated as the Republican nominee for the Seventh Congressional District on September 13 of this year. Backed by the Radical faction of the Republican Party, Parker resigned his judgeship and devoted his energy to the campaign.

1871 - The first session of the Forty-second Congress convened on Saturday, March 4 of this year, with Isaac Parker taking his seat as a freshman representative in the chamber. In the same year, his predecessor, William Story was appointed to the bench.

1872 - Representative Parker handily won a second term in November of this year.

1874 - By the fall of this year, the political tide had shifted in Missouri, and as a Republican, Isaac Parker had no chance of reelection to Congress. Like many others, he sought a presidential appointment to public office.

1875 - In early March of this year, President Grant forwarded Parker's nomination as chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Utah Territory. However, by this time, Parker had submitted a request for appointment as the judge of the federal district court for the Western District of Arkansas, in Fort Smith (Sebastian County).

1884 – The government gave most of the 300 acre military reservation to the city to fund the public school system, largely at the judge's urging. Parker served on the school board and also served as the first board president of the Saint John's hospital (known today as the Sparks Regional Medical Center).

1889 – The judge had the opportunity to take different positions within the federal judiciary; either position would have provided the judge with a reduced caseload. However, the judge had established himself in Fort Smith, and removed his name from consideration for the two positions.

1896 – Judge Parker was at home, too sick to preside over the court. Twenty years of overwork had contributed to a variety of ailments, including Bright's disease. He died on the 17th day of November this year.