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James Parker was born circa 1714 in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. He was the grandson of Elisha Parker of Barnstable, Massachussets, who moved to New Jersey, and Elizabeth Hinckley, sister of Governor Thomas Hinckley. His father was Samuel Parker, a cooper, who probably married Janet Ford.
When James was eleven his father died and on January 1, 1727, he was apprenticed for eight years to William Bradford, prototypographer of New York. On April 1733, when twenty - one months of his indenture remained, Bradford advertised his time for sale, but on May 17, Parker ran away.
On February 26, 1742, Franklin formed a silent partnership with James Parker for carrying on a printing business in New York City for six years, furnishing a press, type, and other appurtenances. Later, while Franklin was abroad, Parker acted as his financial auditor in the business of Franklin & Hall of Philadelphia. On December 1, 1743, Parker succeeded Bradford as public printer of New York, a post he held till about 1760. He had several difficulties with the government. He was censured in 1747 for printing a remonstrance of the Assembly to the governor's message. He was brought before the grand jury for printing on April 27, 1752, a "Speech of an Indian, " for which he apologized in an interesting article on the circumstances of printers. For printing an article on March 1756 on affairs in Ulster and Orange counties, he and his partner were put under arrest, but discharged on revealing the writer's name, apologizing, and paying fees.
Again, in 1770, he printed a paper by "A Son of Liberty, " who proved to be Alexander McDougall, 1732-1786, for which Parker was arrested; but he died before the case was settled. During the Stamp Act troubles of 1765, his New York newspaper appeared in mourning. Besides his several printing businesses, Parker had varied public interests. In Woodbridge he was captain of a troop of horse, a lay reader in Trinity Church (Episcopal), and postmaster in 1754. This year he was also made postmaster at New Haven, operating through John Holt, his partner. In 1756 he became comptroller and secretary of the general post-offices of the British colonies, and in 1765, when the territory was divided, he had charge of the northern district, operating from Woodbridge. He was made librarian of the library of the corporation of the City of New York in the autumn of 1746, instituted a system of circulating and fines, and prepared and printed a catalogue of the books under his care.
On June 2, 1764, James Parker became judge of the court of common pleas of Middlesex County, New Jersey, and in that year he compiled and printed a work setting forth the duties and powers of justices, entitled Conductor Generalis, which for many years had a vogue with public officials. He was identified with printing and journalism in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In the first two he was public printer, and in Connecticut he was printer to Yale College. Besides public documents, newspapers, and magazines, he printed poetry, fiction, history, science, almanacs, chap books, and works on religion and husbandry. In his day he was in eminence and efficiency the equal of any printer in English-America. He was a better printer than Bradford or Franklin. Among his apprentices and journeymen were those who afterward established themselves near and far.
On January 1753, Parker took William Weyman into partnership at New York, and their relations continued until dissolved with acrimony in January 1759. Weyman managed the New York office while Parker was busy at Woodbridge. The New York printery was assigned in February 1759 to his nephew, Samuel Parker, and so continued till John Holt took over the plant in the summer of 1760. On April 12, 1755, Parker established at New Haven the Connecticut Gazette, with Holt as manager and silent partner. The New Haven printery had been set up by Franklin for his nephew, Benjamin Mecom. Holt had come to work for Parker at New York in 1754, and when Parker relinquished this office in the summer of 1760, Holt left New Haven to conduct the New York establishment, where he remained a partner till 1762, when he leased the plant for himself, conducting it till Parker resumed control in the autumn of 1766. At Woodbridge, in 1751, Parker set up the first permanent printing office of New Jersey. He gave this plant exclusive attention from 1753. From 1765, when he went to Burlington, it was managed by his son. At Woodbridge he printed more than seventy-five items, consisting of orations, sermons, discourses, and the public documents of the province. His press issued the first newspaper of New Jersey, really a waif, on September 21, 1765, entitled the Constitutional Courant, as a protest against the obnoxious Stamp Act.
It was in 1765, while business was slack at Woodbridge, that Parker planned to set up a printing office at Burlington, in part to print for Judge Samuel Smith of that city a History of New Jersey, and to do the public printing requested by Gov. William Franklin. For this purpose he borrowed from Benjamin Franklin a press and outfit that Mecom had used in Antigua, Boston, and New York. In New York Parker printed four different periodicals, the Independent Reflector, edited by William Livingston, from November 20, 1752, to November 22, 1753, fifty-two weekly numbers, the Occasional Reverberator, a folio weekly of four issues, September 7 to October 5, 1753, John Englishman, a folio weekly of ten numbers, April 9 to July 5, 1755; and the Instructor, a quarto weekly of ten numbers, March 6 to May 8, 1755. But his greatest venture in periodical literature was printed at Woodbridge, the New American Magazine, edited by Samuel Nevill, which ran through twenty-seven numbers from January 1758 through March 1760. This monthly was a financial failure, as all ten predecessors in that field in the colonies had been.
On December 1768, Parker offered the remainder for sale at bargain prices to "induce the Curious to preserve some of them from Oblivion". It was probably on January 4, 1743, that he began the third newspaper of New York, first called the New-York Weekly Post-Boy, then the New York Gazette, Revived in the Weekly Post-Boy, and finally the New York Gazette, or the Weekly Post-Boy. It underwent many vicissitudes till it expired in 1773. Parker suffered greatly for several years from the gout, and death came to him at a friend's house at Burlington on July 2, 1770. He was buried beside his parents in the Presbyterian churchyard at Woodbridge.
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Quotes from others about the person
"James Parker was eminent in his Profession, "possessed a sound judgment & extensive Knowledge", "was industrious in Business, upright in his Dealings, charitable to the Distressed, " and "left a fair Character. " - John Holt
James Parker married Mary Ballareau. They had two children: Samuel Franklin, who followed his father's business, and Jane Ballareau, who was married to Judge Gunning Bedford, Jr. , of Delaware.
