Stephen H. Parker
Stephen H. Parker
| Born | 1844-01-17 Billerica, MA |
| Died | 1864-07-30 Petersburg, VA |
| Father | Gardner Parker |
| Mother | Adeline Wilson |
Stephen Henry Parker was a son of one of Billerica's leading families who taught a district school at eighteen and was killed at Petersburg, Virginia, on July 30, 1864. His name is cut on the Soldiers' Monument on the Common, the white granite shaft crowned with the figure of a soldier that the town dedicated on October 8, 1873.
He was born on January 17, 1844, the second son of Gardner Parker and Adeline M. (Wilson) Parker, and grew up on the ancestral Kidder-Parker farm on River Street. His brothers were George Gardner, who died in 1860, Frederick Hunt Parker, later a Lowell merchant, Frank Wilson, John Nelson Parker and Charles Harris, who died as a baby. In the winter of 1861-62 he taught the school of District No. 9 in West Billerica, at the Spaulding Schoolhouse; the school committee reported that although "this was his first attempt to teach, yet he seemed quite at home in his new calling, and gave evidence of much future usefulness."
On September 12, 1862 he was mustered into Company I of the 44th Massachusetts Infantry, a nine-months regiment, and he afterwards joined Company D of the 59th Massachusetts. He was killed at Petersburg on July 30, 1864, the day of the mine explosion and assault known as the battle of the Crater. His father, a revenue assessor during the war, served the town as its recruiting officer. A gravestone in the North Cemetery records Stephen's birth.