Richard Parks IV (1626 - aft. 1678)

Born 3 Nov 1626 in England

Husband of Mary (Cutler) Parks — married 1652 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Descendants

Died after 14 Oct 1678 after age 51 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Merry Ann Palmer [send private message] and Bob Carson [send private message]

Disputed Parentage

The Great Migration Study does not list Richard as a son of Richard and Margery. See discussion below for reasons to believe that he may have been.

The position of the Parke Society regarding a "son" Richard

(proven through the Parke Society's paternal DNA project) Lt. Richard Parks does NOT match Richard [arr. 1635] genetically." -Ken Parks, President of the Parke Society and manager of the Parke Society's paternal DNA project, July 2014 ^[1]

Biography

Richard was born in England, probably before 1628. No record of his voyage to America has been discovered, but he probably came with the rest of the family in 1635, although his name and that of his brother, Thomas, do not appear on the passenger list.

He lived in Cambridge, Sherborn, Concord and Weston.

His wife's name was Mary.^[2]

The following explains the reasons for believing that Richard2 was the son of Richard1:

PARENTAGE OF LT. RICHARD PARKS OF CONCORD
by Mr. George Tolman

"Dr. Bond says in substance (page 384 et. sew.) That RICHARD PARKS WAS A PROPRIETOR IN Cambridge in 1636; of Camb. Farms (Lexington) in 1642, and settled in Cambridge Village (Newton) about 1647. His will, dated July 12, 1665, mentions wife, not named, a son Thomas, two daughters not named, one of whom married Thomas Whittemore, of Cambridge. His inventory was dated Aug. 19, 1665. His widow Sarah was living at Duxbury in 1668. Thus far Mr. Bond was perfectly in accordance with recorded facts. But here he begins to blunder. He says THOMAS PARKS the only son of Richard died in 1690. He married in Dec. 1653 Abigail Dix and had children: Thomas born 1654; John born 1656, died March 21, 1717/18, had two children by first wife and six by second wife Elizabeth Miller; Abigail born 1659; Edward born 1661; Richard born 21 Dec. 1663; Sarah b. 1666; Rebecca born 1668; Jonathan born 1670; Elizabeth born 1679. RICHARD PARKS son of Thomas married 1st Sarah Cutler by whom he had one son, born at Newton; married 2nd Elizabeth Billings of Concord in 1690; settled at Concord; was Lieutenant and Represtative, and died at Concord June 19, 1725, aged 58 years. His will mentions wife Elizabeth, sons Joseph, Josiah, Jonathan, Isaac, Ephraim, Daniel and Zacheus, and daughters Elizabeth Fassett, Sarah Post, Abigail Fiske and Rebecca. Richard his oldest son and the only son by his first wife is not mentioned in the will, but he married and had eight children all born at Newton. On page 866 of the same work, Mr. Bond makes some corrections and additions to the above statement on the aurhotiry of Jackson's History of Newton. From tis revised statement it is shown that Sarah the wife of the first Richard Parks was a second wife and not the mother of his children. The statement that John Parks whose children were baptized in Weston in 1718 was the son of Thomas of Newton remains uncontradicted and Richard Parks son of same Thomas is still held to be identical with the Richard who came to Concord and married Elizabeth Billings, but in order to get over the recorded facts that Richard son of Thomas had children born in Newton in the years 1690, 1693, 1696 and 1699, the settlement of Richard of Concord, and his marriage with Elizabeth Billings are said to hav etaken place about the year 1700. These statements of Dr. Bond as corrected by Mr. Jackson are accepted by Dr. Savage in his Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, and by the Rev. L. R. Paige in the History of Cambridge; and therefore, having tot into print in these several works, all of which are regarded as authorities, are nor regarded as truth. It is however quite demonstrable that these writers have confounded two entirely distinct Richards and two entirely distinct Johns.

That Lt. Richard Parks, of Concord was not identical with Richard, son of Thomas, is easily proved by the following considerations:

1st. Richard Parks and Elizabeth Billings were married according to the Concord records, May 14, 1690. They had children Joseph born 1691, Elizabeth born 1692, Sarah born 1696, Josiah born 1698 and Abigail born 1700; just in the very decade of years that Richard the son of Thomas, was on Mr. Jackson's authority having quite a different lot of children born at Newton.

2nd. Lt. Richard Parks, of Concord, died June 19, 1725, in the 58th year of his age; his tombstone being the authority. This would bring his birth in the year 1667 or 16688. While according to Dr. Bond, Richard the son of Thomas was born Dec. 21, 1663, and was thus four or five years older than the Lt. Richard of Concord.

3rd. In the record of the births of his children at Concord, Lt. Richard is frequently called Richard Parks JR. This of itself would imply that there was a Richard Parks SENIOR, then living at Concord. But the only Richard, who according to Dr. Bond and the others, was a senior to the Lieutenant, had died a quarter of a century before. Now, as a matter of fact, both Richard Parks Senior and Richard Parks Jr., were living in the south west quarter of Concord in the year 1689, and were assessed a highway tax, as shown by the Concord Records. In 1687 only one Richard Parks was so assessed; plainly because the younger was not of full age. In 1693 both of them are reported as being still in default of their respective poroportions of the tax assessed two yers before for building the great bridge. Both names, still differentiated by the terms senior and junior, appear from time to time on the records of the town from 1693 to 1711, where the distinguising term disappears and thereafter there is but one Richard, uniformly designated as Lieutenant.

It is plain then, that Lieutenant Richard Parks of Concord, and the Richard born in 1663, son of Thomas of Newton, can not have been one and the same.

The difficulty goes further back, to a Richard Parks whom these authorities have never detected; the Richard Parks Senior of Concord. On Oct. 14, 1678, Richard Parks of Cambridge, planter and his wife MARY convey to Joseph Wilson, "all that tract of land on which I hve erected my now dwelling house in Cambridge Village on the south side of Charles River, being six acres and bounding on Noah Wiswall, Daniel Preston, Thomas Wise, Thomas Hammond, James Trowbridge, and Deliverance Jackson." - (*Rec. Mid'x. Deeds VIII, 64). Now the first Richard Parks had been dead 13 years; Richard of Newton, (son of Thomas) the second Richard in Dr. Bond's tracing, was notyet old enough to have married a wife, or to have built a dwelling house, or to convey real estate; so it is quite plain here is a Richard whom all the authorities have entirely ignored. Notwithstanding the fact that the first Richard dying in 1665, named in his will no son but Thomas, I am still convinced that this Richard of Cambridge Village was his son, who being older than his brother Thomas, had already received his portion of his father's estate during the lifetime of his father. The will of the first Richard Parks is a curious document; written partly in the first person and partly in the third person; obviously dictated; not mentioning by name his wife or either of his daughters, and with a meaningless and shapeless blot in place of a signature, as if the hand that held the pen were already too weak to write. Apparently the instrument was drawn up very hurriedly, perhaps while the testator was in articuo Mortis, and was intended to record his wishes already known and acquiesed in by his heirs, as to the disposition of his property; which wishes, if he were to die intestate, might be defeated by the administration of his estate, under the requirements of the common law. That in such an instrument as that he should have omitted all mention of a son who had been already provided for, and who was satisfied with such provision, is not strange.

In the year 1682, and perhaps earlier, Richard Parks and his wife Mary appear at Sherborn, and on March 18, 1686-7 they convey to Daniel Begelow ten acres of land in that place (Rec. Mid'x Deeds XIII 516),. The deed by which Richard Parks came into possession of this Sherborn property appears not to have been recorded. Immediately after selling out at Sherborn he bought from Nathaniel Billings eaytheene (18) acres of upland &c., copy of deed acknowledged before Peter Bulkeley on May 25, 1687. It was never recorded. He must hav epurchased more land in samd locality; for on April 9, 1711, Richard Parks, senior and his wife Mary and John Parks and wife Deliverence, all of Concord, sell and convey unto Richard Parks Jr., of said Concord, a certain messuage or tenement containing two dwelling houses, and teo barns and thirty acres of upland, in south part of Concord and bounding on land of Joseph Da--ey, John Smith, Daniel Dean and John Heywood. This deed, as well s several others from various grantors to Lieut. Richard Parks, appears to hav eescaped record until after Lt. Richard's death when they were all recorded at once, probably to facilitate the settlement of the estate. The land was in the extreme southerly corner of Concord, old bounds, now Lindoln and touching on the boundary of Weston, not far from the present Silver HIll sTation of the Fitchburg R. R., and some portion of it yet remains in the possession of Lt. Richard Parks's descendants.

John Parks, husband of Deliverance, was a son of Richard and Mary. Find no record of his birth or that of Lieutenent Richard. They must have been born before their parents left Cambridge for Sherborn.

John Parks sold his birthright to Lieut. Richard, removed to Weston with his wife and two daughters; and father and mother went there also, for it is recorded in Vol. II of the Middlesex Court records, page 316, under the date of Aug. 30, 1715 that: "At his Majesty's Court of General Sessions of ye Peace holden at Concord the Selectmen of Weston are allowed to enter their caution against one Richard Parks, and his wife Mary, both being aged and impotent persons, being inhabitants of their town, having been warned by a constable pursuant to law, to remove out of their town." Here we must leave our newly discovered Richard and Mary, parents of Lieut. Richard Parks. From and after the marrige of Lieut. Richard Parks and Elizabeth Billings at Concord in 1690, the line of their children is easily traced."

Children of Richard2 and Mary Parks:

1. John 2. Richard, b. about 1667^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ FindAGrave|148960657
2. ↑ On Oct 14, 1678, Richard Parks, of Cambridge, planter, and his wife Mary, conveyed to Joseph Wilson, "all that tract of land on which I have erected my now dwelling house," etc., As shown in the Cambridge Proprietors' Records of 1642, this is the property which Richard Parke owned at that time.
3. ↑ Genealogy of the Parke families of Massachusetts including Richard Parke, of Cambridge, William Park, of Groton, and others Comp. by Frank Sylvester Parks. Published 1909 by [Presswork by the Columbia Polytechnic Institute Printing Office] available on the internet via Open Library here. Page: pp. 31-34

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Wilfred Vasile for contributing to this profile.