Originally, Parker interments were made at a local cemetery high on a hillside, just east of today’s Parker Road where the off-ramp for southbound travelers on E470 meets state highway 83 (Parker Road). This land was located on the Norman D’Arcy farm. Most of the hillside was removed during construction of the E-470/Parker Road interchange.

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The people known to have been buried there were: the mother of Charles Schaughensy, first name not specified; Mark Lord; Tallman, first name not identified; and Horatio Foster. In 1885 the remains of those four persons were exhumed and re-interred at a new cemetery, the land for which was located on property owned by James S. Parker. Local legend says that land for the cemetery was donated by James S. Parker when his first wife died in 1887. The date, however, is spurious. Parker’s second son Charlie had died and was buried there in 1874, and his third son, Bela, had died and was buried there in 1882. The cemetery did not formally come into existence until 1884. The re-interments from the first cemetery occurred one year later.  To what organization the property was donated is not clear. Title to the property did not pass until 1911, when the surviving heirs of James S. Parker deeded the property to the J.S. Parker Cemetery Association. Those surviving heirs were Era. B. Parker, (second wife of James S. Parker), Edith A. Low, (James Parker’s daughter by his first marriage), James A. Parker (James S. Parker’s first son by his first marriage), and James S. Parker Jr. (James S. Parker’s son by his second wife).  The cemetery association’s trustees at that time were Harold A. Senter, Martin H. Goddard, and Roy J. Woodbury.

 

Although in 1912 an effort to incorporate the Cemetery Association failed, the association was first incorporated on July 31st 1916. Non-profit status was bestowed on February 22, 1972.

 

The original site of the J. S. Parker Cemetery was 3.34 acres. In 1944, Lena Pouppirt donated the land between the cemetery and Highway 83 and a concrete arch over the entrance way, which was located on the south side of the property. The state Highway Department purchased a 0.456 acre strip from the association on which to expand the highway in 1989.  Money from this sale allowed the association to purchase additional land on the west side of the cemetery.

 

In 1998, the cemetery’s mish-mash of records were verified, updated, and computerized by F. B. McLaughlin in conference with Gilbert Carlson, an association trustee for many years.  Those records were distributed to the Castle Rock and Parker Libraries.

 

The J.S. Parker Cemetery is privately owned by the J.S. Parker Cemetery Association. Burial is restricted to those with Parker addresses, or who have relatives buried there.

 

This property has been landmarked by the Town of Parker.

 

Information for this brief was obtained from the 1998 research report by Frank B. McLaughlin.

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