A Parker Family History

A Parker Family History
of Parkers, Brents, Lysters, Mitchells, Shermans, and more.

Introduction and Overview

"A Parker Family History" is now at its fourth home, having started off at Geocities. When Yahoo closed down Geocities, I moved it to Free0host.com, but after having Free0host completely disappear several times for periods of a week or more, with no explanation, I found a new home at Limewebs; after a number of years, Limewebs ended their freehosting service in 2016. Now I have relocated here to Orgfree, part of FreeWebHostingArea.
This site is a presentation of my ongoing research into my ancestry, that of my wife, and of related families. In its initial form, my site included a full copy of my database, but it has since grown too large for that. You can find my full database at RootsWeb, which has search functions that I could not reasonably duplicate here. Each major person mentioned here has a link to that person's corresponding page in my RootsWeb database.
Since starting this project, I have greatly expanded my sources of information and most of my entries contain either a source citation or a reference in the remarks as to where the information comes from. Nevertheless, this remains a work in progress, and even the most commonly accepted source could prove wrong, as has been the case in several instances. Accordingly, researchers should take care to verify all facts against their own research.
As always, I look forward to communicating with anyone who finds a potential match or who can help correct an error.
-Charles Parker

Parker	Our Parker family descends from John Parker of Cambridge Village (now Newton), Massachusetts, and his wife, Joanna. A few sources wrongly suggest John was the son of Robert and Judith Parker, but the fact that there was no more than fourteen years between John and Robert shows this cannot be true. It is more common to find it claimed that John arrived in Hingham, MA about 1636 and lived there for some years before moving to Cambridge Village, but this is extremely unlikely. The accounts usually offered for John's arrival at Hingham can be demonstrated to refer to other men named John Parker, while Vital Records suggest that all John's children, including the two eldest daughters who are commonly listed as born at Hingham, were actually born at Cambridge Village. Furthermore, the date offered for John's 'arrival' at Cambridge Village (March of 1650-51), is actually just the date when he purchased his farm there, and does not prove that he was not in Cambridge or Cambridge Village prior to that. The notion that John had come from Hingham seems to rest on the fact that the men he is supposed to have moved with had settled in Hingham at the same time as another John Parker, and then purchased land in Cambridge and in Muddy River (near Brookline), the latter property adjoining land belonging to a third John Parker. The deeds of the sale of the Cambridge Village properties plainly record that two of the other men are "both of Hingham", but have no such notation concerning John Parker. The Hingham myth plainly comes from researchers mistakenly assuming that these three John Parkers were all one man. From John, our family lineage follows his son and grandson, both also named John, and then Ezra Parker, who moved to Winchester, New Hampshire, and his son, Ezra Jr. Both Ezras were supporters of Independence, and Ezra Jr was commandant of a New Hampshire militia unit during the War of 1812. Ezra Jr's eldest son, John Goldsbury Parker, moved to New York State, where he operated a line of packet ships on Lake Ontario. Living in Ontario with his wife, John's outspoken views got him embroiled in the 1837 Upper Canada rebellion, where he was arrested and charged with treason. After a year's imprisonment in Canada, John was shipped to England where he appealed his arrest in the British courts, which ultimately ordered his release on a writ of habeus corpus. Now free, John rejoined his family in New York, where he worked as a merchant and grocer. John's children scattered across the country. The two oldest sons settled in Detroit, founding a wholesale grocery business. The eldest daughter married a farmer and moved to Vermont. The second daughter lived primarily in Rochester, NY, where she married first a newspaper editor and then a prominent attorney. The third and fourth sons appear to have been twins, with one settling in California and the other principally in Olympia, Washington. The youngest son and the youngest daughter both settled in New Jersey. I am also working to trace as many of the descendants of John Parker of Cambridge Village as possible.
Brent	The Brents descend from Giles Brent, the deputy governor of Maryland who later moved to Virginia with his much younger Piscataway Indian bride. Giles in turn descends from a family of minor nobility that is first recorded in England in 1080, when Martin de Turre is listed as Lord of Kemys in Pembrokeshire. The family was prominent in Somersetshire, where they first adopted the surname 'de Brent', as supporters of the great abbey at Glastonbury. Generations later, a younger son, Robert Brent, fled Somersetshire for reasons not yet clear under the assumed name 'John Buston', settling at Stoke in Gloucestershire (now Warwickshire), where he married the daughter of George Colchester, Lord of Stoke and Admington. The relationship between Robert Brent and the Colchesters was obviously quite close, for George Colchester's eldest son and heir Richard inexplicably passed over his own brothers and nephews, conveying his title to Robert Brent's line. Robert's grandson, Richard Brent (father of Giles Brent, above), married Elizabeth Reade in 1594, the daughter of Katherine Greville, through whom Elizabeth was a direct descendant of William the Conqueror, King Alfred the Great of England, and Hugh Capet of France, among others. Giles Brent and his brothers, who established the family in North America, were Robert's great-great-grandsons. The Brents became a prominent family of Virginia, intermarrying with the Lees of Virginia and Carrolls of Maryland, among others.
Lyster	The Lysters come from Ireland's County Wexford, descending from John Sr of Rocksavage, who in turn descended from Sir Thomas Lyster in England. By the marriage of Walter Lyster, son of Anthony Lyster of Newsholme, to Deborah Osbaldeston, daughter of Geoffrey Osbaldeston, Chief Justice of Connaught, their descendants have a direct descent from many of the Anglo-Saxon English kings, the Norman and Plantagenet kings from William the Conqueror through Edward III, and the French kings from Hugh Capet through Philip IV. John Sr's great-grandsons, Armstrong Lyster and William Narcissus Lyster, moved to America. William, a freshly ordained Anglican priest, first served an Episcopal church in Cleveland before being called to help found the first of several new congregations in rural Michigan. Several years later, William became the first rector of Christ Episcopal Church, Detroit. His family would remain in Detroit. His brother, Armstrong, was a farmer, settling in Michigan's Van Buren County.
Mitchell	Robert Mitchell was born in Enniskillen in northern Ireland in 1811, the son of John Mitchell and Jane Peterson. John brought his family to the United States in 1824, settling on a farm in Indiana. Robert later moved to Cincinnati, where he took up the trade of cabinet maker. He soon established his own company. Financial necessity compelled him to take on a partner, Frederick Rammelsberg, with the company being known as Mitchell and Rammelsberg. Rammelsberg died in 1863, leaving Robert to continue the business on his own. In 1881, the firm was again renamed as the Robert Mitchell Furniture Company. Robert married Harriet Hannaford. Their son, Richard Hannaford Mitchell, was born in Cincinnati in 1850, and joined his father's company. With his wife Mary Lucia Lincoln, the daughter of Timothy Lincoln and Mary Clark of Cincinnati, Richard started a large family, ultimately having 12 children. His sixth child, William Ledyard Mitchell, after working in the family business, moved to Detroit in 1917 to join the Maxwell Motor Corporation as an executive, retaining his position after Maxwell was bought out by Chrysler.
Sherman	Charles Robert Sherman was born in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1788. He was admitted to the Connecticut bar at age 21, but quickly decided to move to the frontier. Soon deciding on Lancaster, Ohio, he brought his wife, Mary Hoyt, and young son, Charles Taylor Sherman, to join him. He was appointed a judge of the Ohio Supreme Court, but died while riding the circuit, leaving behind considerable debts that left his wife destitute. His children were parceled out to various friends and relatives. His eldest son, Charles Taylor Sherman, would follow his father as a lawyer and judge. Among the other children, Tecumseh, who would later adopt the baptismal name William, entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, serving in the military until 1852. Rejoining the Army soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, first as a colonel, and then a major-general of volunteers, he would achieve exemplary military success, becoming one of the Union's greatest military heroes of the conflict. John Sherman also chose law, but quickly found his calling in politics, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, as Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State. Sons Lampson and Hoyt went west to Des Moines, Iowa. There, Lampson failed in an attempt to launch a newspaper, but eventually became collector of U.S. revenue. Hoyt initially served as postmaster, before making his true mark in the fields of banking and insurance. Charles Robert Sherman was a descendant of Samuel Sherman, who was born in Dedham, Essex, England, before immigrating to Fairfield, CT. Samuel, in turn, descends from Henry Sherman of Dedham, and later of Colchester, who was born about 1511. It has long been suggested that Henry Sherman of Dedham was the son of Thomas Sherman and Jane Waller of Yaxley, but more recent research has rendered this theory highly doubtful; while it is clear that Thomas Sherman of Yaxley did have a son named Henry, that Henry appears to be too young to have been Henry Sherman of Dedham, and in a deposition filed in 1574, Henry of Dedham gave his age as 62, placing his birth about 1511, earlier than previously supposed.
Deming	George Deming was born in August of 1829 in Hinckley, Ohio, the son of Frederick Deming and Elizabeth Ingersoll, and like most Demings in America, is descended from John Deming of Wethersfield, Connecticut. He later moved to Cleveland, where he married Celia Bigelow. In Cleveland, George entered the hardware trade, becoming executive vice president of the wholesale hardware firm, the George Worthington Company. George's son Paul entered the automotive industry for several years, before moving to Detroit in 1905 to join the banking and finance trade.

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