Career
Late in his life Parkhurst created the role of Hobbs in the 1888 American debut of Little Lord Fauntleroy. Parkhurst had planned to stop by Booth’s dressing room at Ford"s Theatre that night to borrow a costume. An appointment that for different reasons both missed.
Parkhurst received some training for the stage from the actor Edwin Forrest.
By the 1880s he apparently felt secure enough to become more active on stage and later found success playing Hobbs in the original American productions of Little Lord Fauntleroy. During this time Parkhurst had toured for several seasons with actress Maggie Mitchell"s company in the play Fanchon, the Cricket, an adaptation of George Sand’s Louisiana Petite Fadette by August Waldauer, and received critical acclaim for the role he was most proud of, Colonel Buzzy in a theatrical production of Amélie Rives" The Quick or the Dead.
Parkhurst died on July 2, 1890, at the age of forty-nine, after suffering a stroke at his New York residence. Parkhurst was interred at Prospect Hill Cemetery, Washington, District of Columbia
Some six months before his death Parkhurst made the claim in the press that on the afternoon of April 14, John Wilkes Booth visited an actor friend staying at Petersen House in Washington District of Columbia During his stay Booth"s friend noticed that the actor seemed agitated and suggested that he lie down on his bed for a short rest, supposedly the same bed Abraham Lincoln died in just a few hours later.
