The Parkers of Clay and Laurel County
Daniel Parker was born in 1750 and was from Chowan County, then a province of the Colony of North Carolina. He married Susan Terrill. It is also known that John “Renta” Baker married Elizabeth Terrill of Chowan County. It is very probable that Susan and Elizabeth Terrill were related. Both families migrated to the area that would become Clay County, Kentucky, and stayed close for years to come. Daniel Parker and John Baker fought in the American Revolutionary War and afterward were among the early pioneering families who settled in southeast Kentucky.
One of John Baker’s sons was Robert Julius “Bob” Baker, who married Elizabeth Hammond and later Katie Bowling, the widow of John Amis. Robert Baker settled in what would become Clay County, while his father, John, moved to what would become Owsley County. Daniel and Susan Parker also settled in Clay County for a time, and two of Daniel Parker’s sons, Pleasant and John, were early landowners according to the Clay County tax records of 1810.
Clay County and the Cattle War
Clay County was formed April 1, 1807, and the area included much of what would become Laurel and Jackson Counties. Shortly after the county was formed, the first meeting of the new government and court was held in the cabin of Robert Baker.
Trouble began between John Amis, who had moved into the area in 1800, and William Strong. By 1806 Amis was a co-founder and part owner of the Goose Creek Salt Works at Manchester. At the same time, Strong and a group of Virginia farmers and cattle ranchers were putting down roots in the area.
The dispute led to a bitter feud known as the “Cattle War.” Amis, a successful lawyer and circuit judge in Kentucky, was shot and killed by an outlaw involved in the feud. Judge Amis had been holding the first circuit court in Clay County, in Robert Baker’s cabin.
Militia and county service
Three men played a significant role in keeping the peace: Robert McJilton, followed by Robert Baker and Pleasant Parker. When the War of 1812 began, Kentucky’s governor asked Thomas McJilton to form a company of militia from Clay County. He chose Robert Baker and Pleasant Parker as co-leaders.
Over time, both Baker and Parker served as sheriff in the broad Clay County region before Laurel County was formed. Pleasant Lewis Parker was commissioned sheriff of Clay County in the early 1820s. He declined reappointment as Laurel County sheriff in 1842, when he was almost sixty years old.
Pleasant Parker also served as gatekeeper of the Wilderness Road after it became a turnpike for travel and commerce. The road was critical to development in the region, and the Kentucky legislature levied a small toll so it could be maintained. Parker’s reports were recorded in early entries of Laurel County Record Book AA.
The Parker sons
All five of Daniel and Susan Parker’s sons were early settlers in the region: John Parker in Whitley County, Richard Parker in Knox, Alfred in Clay, and Pleasant and Edward in the Clay and Laurel area.
Pleasant, the oldest son, spent much of fifty years in Clay, Laurel, and Jackson Counties before his death at his farm along the south branch of the Rockcastle in 1857. His sons were Joseph, Alexander, Green, and John H. Parker. Many descendants remained in the area he had settled.
Edward Parker, the youngest son, followed the family to Kentucky and moved to the area in 1820. He was the father of Felix, Daniel, and Edward Jr. Edward and Polly Young Parker also had several daughters, most of whom married men from Laurel or Jackson County. The author stated that his father descended from Edward Parker’s son Felix.