Background
Benjamin parke was born on September 2, 1777 in New Jersey, United States. He grew up there on a farm.
Benjamin parke was born on September 2, 1777 in New Jersey, United States. He grew up there on a farm.
Benjamin Parke had commons-schools education. When about twenty years old he migrated to the West, settling first at Lexington, Kenntucky, where he took up the study of law in the office of James Brown.
After Benjamin's Parke admission to the bar he removed, in 1801, to the newly organized territory of Indiana, residing first at Vincennes and then at Salem. Vincennes, the first territorial capital, was the scene of rather violent local politics in which Parke participated as the friend and supporter of the governor, William Henry Harrison. This allegiance to the most powerful personage in the territory may have paved the way to subsequent preferments. At any rate, in 1804 Parke was made attorney general, and throughout the Harrison régime in Indiana he was from time to time appointed to offices of a military character. While serving as attorney general (1804 - 1808) he was elected in 1805 to the first territorial legislature, and on December of the same year was sent as delegate to Congress, where he served for two terms, resigning in 1808 to accept appointment as territorial judge.
In 1816, when delegates were elected to frame a state constitution, he was sent to the convention as a Knox County member, and is credited with being instrumental in securing the adoption of certain educational provisions which became the foundation of the state school system. Meanwhile, his activity in the local militia at a time when that organization was an arm of real importance in frontier defense was something more than the gratification of a passing ambition for glory. For at least ten years he was in this service, and when the troubles with the Indians culminated in 1811 in the Tippecanoe campaign he raised a company of dragoons and joined the expedition. He participated in the bloody battle of Tippecanoe following Harrison's march, and after that engagement was made commander of the cavalry with the rank of major.
The knowledge he acquired of the Indian character made him valuable in a civil as well as a military capacity, and he served as an Indian agent and as a commissioner representing the United States in negotiating various land treaties. The most noteworthy of these treaties was that signed at St. Mary's, Ohio, in 1818, by which the whole central part of Indiana was secured to the whites. The representatives of the federal government on this occasion were Jonathan Jennings, then governor of the state, Lewis Cass, and Benjamin Parke. As a jurist Parke took high rank among the pioneer judges of Indiana. He was on the bench, all told, about twenty-seven years; first as a territorial judge, to which office he was appointed by President Jefferson in 1808, then as United States district judge, under a commission dated March 6, 1817, soon after Indiana was admitted to the Union.
In the latter office he served until his death. This long service was the more notable by reason of the arduous character of his duties in the days of large circuits and hard traveling. A story survives of his riding horseback from Vincennes to Wayne County, across the state, to try a man for stealing a twenty-five cent pocket knife. Educationally Parke was a self-made man, yet he attained to a reputation for learning and is said to have acquired one of the largest private libraries in Indiana Territory. He was a promoter of the first public library in the territory, established at Vincennes, and of a later one at Corydon which was the forerunner of the Indiana State Library. He was also connected with the territory's first school of higher learning, Vincennes University, being at one time chairman of its board of trustees.
Historical and antiquarian interests also claimed his attention and he was one of the organizers of a society of that character at Vincennes, and afterwards first president of the Indiana Historical Society, founded in 1830. Throughout his latter years he made unceasing efforts to repay money losses due to unfortunate business reverses caused by others. Through frugal living and work, made harder by the handicap of partial paralysis, he managed before his death to free himself of debts for which others were to blame. He died on July 12, 1835.
Parke was the first president of the Indiana Historical Society.
Benjamin Parke was a tall and spare in person, of rather frail physique, dignified in appearance, but affable. He was known among his peers for his honesty and integrity.
Benjamin Parke married Eliza Barton in Lexington, Kenntucky, before moving to Indiana. They had two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom died before their parents.
