Franklin Edward Parkinson

Second marriage, 21 Mar 1906, to Avaline B. Jordan:

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Page 299

FRANK E. PARKINSON, of the city of Madison, was born in the town of Fayette, La Fayette county, Wisconsin Territory, October 16, 1842, and is a son of Nathaniel Taylor and Maria Louise (Briggs) Parkinson, natives of Tennessee and New York.

N. T. Parkinson, a mere lad, with his father, settled in Wisconsin Territory in 1827, at Mineral Point; was a soldier in tile Black Hawk war, fought in the battle of the Bad Axe; was the first Sheriff of Dane county, in 1839, appointed by Governor Dodge, and built the first Dane county jail. He was named "Taylor," at the request of General Zachary Taylor, who was a near neighbor of his father in Tennessee, and made him a handsome bequest in consideration of so naming the child. Our subject now has books in his law library bought with money derived from this Taylor bequest.

Mr. F. E. Parkinson was educated at the Wisconsin State University, and received the degree of Ph. B.. Studied law in Shullsburg, Wisconsin, in the law office of the Hon. John K. Williams; was admitted to the bar in Wisconsin and Kansas in the year 1872; began practice in the city of Stoughton in 1873, and in 1875 formed a copartnership with the Hon Alden S. Sanborn, of the city of Madison; was Clerk of Stoughton two years, and City Attorney of Madison one year; was twice a candidate, in 1880 and 1886, for Judge of the Dane county Municipal Court; is a Republican and a protectionist, and for twelve years has been secretary and attorney of the Northwestern Mutual Relief Association, a most successful life insurance company, of Madison, Wisconsin.

Mr. Parkinson is of the seventh generation of English ancestors settled in South Carolina; is a grandson of Colonel D. M. Parkinson, who was a soldier in the war of 1812, and fought in the battle of New Orleans; was aid-de-camp to General Dodge in the Black Hawk war; was a member of the first three Territorial Legislatures, 1836-1840, first constitutional convention, and first State Legislature in 1849, and introduced the first free, or common-school bill.

Mr. Parkinson's grandfather, H. L. Briggs was a son of a Revolutionary officer, a soldier in the war of 1812; was superintendent of western mail service, and lived during the reign of four British monarchs and twenty- two American presidents.

Mr. Parkinson was married December 23, 1869, to Miss Nellie Belden, and they have twin daughters, Maude and Eve, now eighteen years old, and members of the senior class in the Madison High School, in the ancient classical course.

Mrs. F. E. Parkinson is a daughter of Merriwether Lewis and Judith (Marshall) Belden; was born December 10, 1843, in East Whately, Franklin county, Massachusetts; came in 1849, with her parents to Illinois, and to Wisconsin in 1851, and is a descendant of Captain Samuel Marshall, a soldier of the Revolution.

Mrs. Parkinson's ancestors came from England with the Connecticut colony in 1630, and in 1640 settled in East Whately, and took hind under the royal British grant, which is still in the family, having descended from father to son through six generations. The Belden homestead, built in 1765, before the Revolution, is still a grand old mansion.

Mrs. Parkinson is ninth in descent from Thomas Ford, who was born at Salcombe Regis, Devonshire, England, in 1580, and came to America in the ship Mary and John, Captain Squebb; sailed from Plymouth in March, and landed in Boston, May 30, 1630. It is written of Thomas Ford that he was "a man of property. Deputy to the General Court, and a grand juror."

Mrs. Parkinson is also eighth in descent from Captain Roger Clap, who also came to America in the ship Mary and John. He was twenty-one years captain of Castle William, in Boston harbor. He has slept two centuries, in the old King's Chapel burying ground, one of the oldest in America, and his name, in quaint old lettering, can still be read on the time-eaten tombstone, and also on the bronze tablet at the Tremont street gateway.

Among Mrs. Parkinson's relatives may be found Anna Belden, who imported the seed, raised the first broom corn, and made the first corn broom in America; John Fitch, inventor of the steamboat; the proprietors of the Belden and Leonard silk mills; Merriwether Lewis, the great western explorer; Dixon II. Lewis, once a United States Senator from Alabama; William Cullen Bryant, the poet; the Professors Whitney, of Yale, Harvard and Beloit; also Professor Elwell, of Amherst; and her father served in the Florida and Indian wars under General Taylor.

Bibliographic information:

• Biographical review of Dane county, Wisconsin. Containing biographical sketches of pioneers and leading citizens ..
• by Biographical review publishing company, pub
• Publication date 1893
• Publisher Chicago, Biographical review publishing co.
• Digitizing sponsor Sloan Foundation
• Contributor The Library of Congress
• Possible copyright status NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
• Pages 678
• https://archive.org/details/biographicalrevi01biog/page/299/mode/1u...

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