Background
Parks, Gorham was born on May 27, 1794 in Westfield, Massachusetts, United States.
United States representative lawyer politician
Parks, Gorham was born on May 27, 1794 in Westfield, Massachusetts, United States.
Born in Westfield, Massachusetts, Parks attended the common schools and graduated from Harvard University in 1813, where he studied law.
He was admitted to the bar in 1819 and began his practice in Bangor, Maine in 1823. Parks was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth United States Congresses (March 4, 1833–March 3, 1837). He was a local leader of the Loco-foco or radical faction of the Democratic Party, which was anti-bank, anti-paper money, and anti-monopoly.
He was opposed locally by Bangor's "Bank Junto", or conservative Democrats, which included Samuel Veazie, William Emerson, John Hodgdon, and Thomas A. Hill. In 1837 Parks was the Democratic candidate for Maine governor. In one of the closest gubernatorial races in Maine history, Parks lost by less than a thousand votes (with about 70,000 cast).
Parks was subsequently appointed United States Marshal for the District of Maine (1838–1841), and then United States Attorney for Maine (1843–1845). Parks died in Bay Ridge, New York, November 23, 1877, and was interred in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.
Member United States Ho.