(son of Pleasant Parker - Parker, Pleasant )

Family: 

          Spouse:

Camp Douglas, the North's Andersonville

At least 4275 Confederate Soldiers died during their internment at Camp Douglas... Some estimates place the death toll over 6,000.  More Confederate Soldiers died at Camp Douglas than at any other Union Prisoner of War Camp.

I don't hold the copyright for the below material; it is strictly applied for non-commercial purposes only. My cousin, Joe James Parker, contributed the information.

Column for Monday, June 4, 2007

Photo file name: PARKER, Alfred Webb Parker

Cut line: Early settler Alfred Parker
    Undated portrait of Alfred Webb Parker (1833-1908), ancestor of several thousand Transylvanians today. Our People, Our Past

The Transylvania Genealogy Group

    Transylvania Genealogy Group member Joe James Parker of Pisgah Forest has provided this week’s historic image of his ancestor Alfred Webb Parker.The photograph is believed to be the oldest of a Parker born in present-day Transylvania County. According to land records, the Parkers arrived on the local pioneer scene by at least 1807, if not earlier. The family migrated across the Blue Ridge from nearby Spartanburg County, South Carolina, settling first in the vicinity of Balsam Grove near the waters of the North Fork of the French Broad River. The founder of the bloodline in the county was pioneer William Parker, believed to have been born about 1740 in either Virginia or North Carolina. While the family was still residing in South Carolina at the time of the 1800 census, a historical notation in a 1796 record hints of a possible earlier local Parker connection or presence. David Allison’s massive 1796 land-grant, a tract consisting of 250,243 acres sprawling across much of Transylvania and adjoining counties, notes a boundary on Parker’s Creek. Research has yet to determine the source of the name of the stream. According to Joe Parker, his great-grandfather Alfred Webb Parker was born on December 15, 1833 near the location of the old Silversteen School House. Alfred’s father, Pleasant Parker, was known to have owned that land, most likely through inheritance from his father, early settler William Solomon Parker, Sr. Alfred and his wife Frances moved a short distance into Jackson County where they raised their typically large mountain family of eleven children. Three of their children returned to Transylvania and settled along the North Fork of the French Broad. Through marriage, the Parkers were allied to several of the largest pioneer families bearing such proud old surnames as McCall, Galloway, and Owen, to name a few. To download a copy of this and all photos presented by The Transylvania Genealogy Group, visit the group’s free access website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TransylvanCoGenPHOTOS/ For additional information about the Transylvania Genealogy Group and its active on-line research community, TransylvanCoGenList, please contact assistant group manager Mary Daniels Galyon, Brevard, at (828) 884-5411, or contact co-administrator Michael Allison by e-mail at dma12@bellsouth.net Please visit the Transylvania Genealogy Group main page on the Web at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TransylvanCoGenList/