Joel Parker (1795 - 1875)
Born at Jaffrey (NH); died at Cambridge (MA).
Lawyer, state legislator, jurist, law professor.
Portrait by C. R. Grant, after A. G. Hoit
Presented to the State 1884

Educated at Groton (MA) Academy, Parker entered Dartmouth College as a sophomore and graduated at age sixteen (1811). He then read law with his brother Edmund at Amherst (NH), and he began law practice at Keene (NH) in 1816.

In 1821 Parker decided to join the flow of New Hampshire people heading west, and he was admitted to the Bar at Columbus, Ohio in 1822. The adventure of The West was short-lived, and Parker returned to Keene soon thereafter.

Parker as a lawyer was studious and detailed, and dry and uninteresting in argument. At Keene Parker's great rival as a lawyer was James Wilson, Jr., who was elegant and dashing, and strong in argument where Parker was dry. Bell (p. 87) recounts how the two lawyers once attended the two-week session at Newport (NH), riding up and back together as was the practice at that time. According to Bell, Parker said, "I'm going home to sell out, and go to sea before the mast!" "I know what you mean," replied Wilson. "I've always told you there was no use putting nice points of law to the public." "My clients...are satisfied with the way I try their cases." "So are mine," rejoined Wilson, "so long as I get verdicts for them." (quoted in Bell, p. 87)

Parker was elected a State Representative (served 1824/6). He was also said to be the author of an act which spelled out how to remodel New Hampshire courts. The act was adopted after full discussion and debate, and with the approval of Chief Justice William M. Richardson.

The plan to remodel New Hampshire courts gave extensive chancery powers to the State Superior Court. In January 1833 Parker was made an Associate Justice of the Superior Court. He served as Associate (1833/38), and then as Chief Justice (1838/48). During these years his greatest case, a difference of opinion with United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story over construction of a clause in the 1841 Bankrupt Act, was ultimately resolved in Parker's favor by the Supreme Court, in Peck v. Jessup (7 Howard, 612).

In June 1848 Parker resigned form the bench to become Royall Professor at Harvard Law School. He held this position for twenty years (1848/68) before resigning. But he did not confine himself to Harvard Law School matters while at Harvard. Parker was a delegate to revise the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1853), and a commissioner to revise the Statutes of the Commonwealth (1855). He was Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, and he lectured at medical schools about these matters. Parker was in addition called on to testify about important points of law in state courts, and to deliver opinions on matters of law before Massachusetts courts. He published numerous articles on constitutional law during the Civil War, and wrote voluminously for the Massachusetts Historical Society. In his last years (1868/75), Parker lived at Cambridge (MA) while holding a non-resident legal professorship at Dartmouth College.

Reference: Charles H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894), pp. 86 - 91.