The Joel Parker Fund

Created: 1901
Purpose: Library; Cemetery

"Income for library books and care of cemetery lot at Jaffrey Center"

Biography of Joel Parker

Joel Parker was born on the Parker homestead in the northeast corner of Jaffrey, January 25, 1795, (see Genealogy, Volume II, page 566) and was the youngest of nine children of Hon. Abel and Edith (Jewett) Parker. He attended the district school in Jaffrey, and was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1811. He studied law with his brother, Hon. Edmund Parker, at Amherst, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of his profession at Keene, in September, 1815. He was a member of the New Hampshire legislature in 1824, 1825, and 1826, and was appointed a member of the committee to receive and accompany Lafayette in his visit to New Hampshire in 1825. In 1833 he was appointed associate Justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire and in 1838 he became Chief Justice, and, in the language of the resolutions adopted by his associates after his death, he brought to the discharge of the duties of that high office "an intellect of the highest order, an industry that never tired, a profound knowledge of law accompanied by strong common sense. . .. In private life and personal character Judge Parker was distinguished for the same integrity, simplicity, manliness and dignity which characterized his judicial career, and that in all the relations of life he manifested a love of justice and a high appreciation of whatever was right and noble and good which secured for him the respect, the confidence and the esteem of all who knew him."

Judge Parker was a trustee of Dartmouth College from 1843 to 1860, and Professor of Medical Jurisprudence from 1847 to 1857. In 1848 he resigned his position of Chief Justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire to accept that of Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University. In 1837 Dartmouth College conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., and in 1848 he received the same honor from Harvard University.

His life was a long and busy one, including such notable service as acting as a commissioner for the revision of the public statutes in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts, besides contributions to the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the discussion of constitutional questions arising in connection with the Civil War, which have found a permanent place in the legal and constitutional literature of the country. Among his last contributions to historical literature was his address at the centennial celebration of his native town on August 20, 1873, in his seventy-ninth year, a work of great interest and value that remains one of the choicest literary treasures of the town.

Judge Parker died August 17, 1875, and among his many public bequests was one for founding a professorship of law in Dartmouth College, and, of special interest in this tribute to his memory, we record, as an evidence of filial regard for his native town, a bequest of ten thousand dollars for the support of a library in Jaffrey. This bequest, still remembered as evidence of the generous intent of the testator, suffered from the acute depression of the period, and was by agreement with the executors reduced to one half the sum originally named, because it proved in excess of the funds available for the purpose, while the sum of five thousand dollars actually received and known as the Joel Parker Fund remains one of our largest benefactions and a source of immeasurable benefit to the town he so honored.

Source: Town History, vol I, p. 658