On April 11, the Cincinnati Enquirer featured an article entitled “Local Players in the Civil War”. The article mentions John Parker, saying:

John Parker

A former slave who purchased his own freedom, Parker lived in Indiana and Cincinnati before moving to Ripley in Brown County, where he helped hundreds of slaves find freedom as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, he was an active recruiter for all-black regiments in the Union Army.

The article also features Ripley’s John Rankin. You can read it here:

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/ourhistory/2011/04/11/local-players-in-civil-war/