Captain H. F. Parker

Captain H.F. Parker, a well-known vesselmaster of Cleveland, Ohio, gained his first sailing experience on the ocean. He was born in Northampton, England, in 1841, the son of Capt. J. T. Parker, who was an ocean navigator for many years, and began sailing at the age of fourteen. Before coming to the lakes he saw service on the schooners Potomac and Rhoda, the C. J. Kershaw, a Cleveland-built vessel, the ship Spark of the Ocean, the bark Traveler, the ship Lammergeyer and the packet ship Western Empire, in these vessels visiting Queenstown, London, Leeds, Rio Grande (Brazil), Melbourne, Sydney, New Zealand and Hong Kong; the East Indies, Madras, Calcutta; New Orleans, Boston and many other parts of the world. The family had removed to the United States when he was very young, and settled in Buffalo, and in 1860 he began sailing out of that port in the schooner Augusta. Soon after he joined the schooner Alice Curtiss for an ocean voyage, touching at Mobile, where he joined the ship Express, of Boston, for a trip to Havre, France. Returning to the United States he made his way up the Mississippi river to the lakes, where he joined the schooner Ravenna for another ocean voyage, this time going to Liverpool. Following this he served in a small bark that made several ocean voyages, and finally returned to the lakes, holding berths on the barks Sunnyside and Golden West, the brig Bay City, the North West, Sunrise, R. E. Hart, May Collins, San Jacinto, Empire, W. O. Brown, David Ferguson, Turk, Mary B. Hale, Minerva, Topsy, Oneonta, Erastus Corning, Canopus and William Treat. Then he became mate of the Major Anderson, and, later, master of the N. P. Goodell, mate of the brig C. P. Williams, second mate of the Bahama and St. Lawrence, and mate of the G. G. Norris, David Tod and James Carroll. He has since been master of the Butcher Boy two years, the H. G. Cleveland three years, the James Couch one season, the Erastus Corning four seasons, and the Joseph G. Masters six seasons. Captain Parker has also commanded the Quayle and the Adriatic one season each. He has sailed on every sea and visited every prominent port in the world, and has never had a vessel ashore.

The Captain was married, in 1862, to Miss Sarah Boyle, of Ashtabula, Ohio. They have two children - John Thomas and Margaret Ann.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.