1904-1912 Assessor Clerk Signed Gov.Jefferson Davis & Gov Donaghey

I bought out a storage from an auction,while going through some of the boxes I found this set of certificates from the state of Arkanas,one was Gov. Jefferson Davis 1904 signed for WL Parker Assessor,the next one is Gov. Geo. W. Donaghey for WL Parker 1912 clerk of Polk county,anybody have any information who was WL Parker and some information on the governors,I have several other papers of WL Polk being charge for a crime,signatures of the Polk county asking not to charge him.I would love some informations on all,I googled and found very little.

 

Have you done any searching on this site?
http://www.argenweb.net/polk/

@Bakersgma

 

The SITE DOESN'T GIVE ANY INFORMATION ON WL PARKER OR THE GOVENORS.i HAVE SEVERAL COURT PAPERS WHERE Mr W L PARKER WAS SEALING AND GOT CAUGHT.i FOUND SOME HISTORY ON THE GOVENORS BUT NOT MUCH

 

Biographical info on those two governors are on page three on this site:
https://classic.nga.org/cms/home/governors/past-governors-bios/page_arkansas.default.html

You should tell us which sites you have already found. We don't want to waste our time in telling you about things that you already know!

 

you are not wasting your time,there are some things I didn't know.I'm still looking myself.I was really tring to find out about Mr Parker but I guess that's not on google.Thanks

 

One thing you could do is try to find newspaper articles from the time period of his court case. Or if you could find any county histories from the early 20th century in that part of Arkansas (Polk County) you might find something since he was a county elected official. It's harder because he seemed to go by his initials instead of his first name spelled out. That makes it harder to find.

If you really want to do a lot of research you could see if there are any genealogical records about him in FamilySearch (free), WorldConnect family trees (free), or Ancestry (subscription required). There are others. FamilySearch and Ancestry both have US census records and you might be able to figure out his first name from some of that.

The newspapers from Polk County may be in subscription sites like newspapers dot com or newspaperarchive dot com. There also are free digitized papers out there, but scattered and it helps to know the newspaper name. There are also reference sources that can tell you the names of newspapers in different areas throughout history. If you know the name of the paper you can look for it online to see if older ones are available.

 

Thanks,I've tried all the above except old newspaper.I throught about calling but I'm sure Polk county won't give any information.I have a small box full of old papers.Some of the papers with Mr Parker date back to late 1800's.But thanks for all your help.

 

Took a while to find the right W L Parker, but here's what I found. William Leonard Parker Sr. was born in Jasper, Walker County, Alabama on 5 Aug 1866. As of the 1910 census report he was living with his wife of 19 years, Ella, and their 6 children ages 1 - 18, in Polk County, Arkansas. His occupation is listed as County Clerk.

He died 23 Oct 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee of a cerebral hemorrage. He occupation on the death certificate says he was a "retired Judge and Lawyer."

 

Great information! Hope that will help.

 

Found his memorial in Find A Grave. It doesn't give much more info except that he was buried in Arkansas although he died in Memphis. So perhaps,was just visiting Memphis when he died.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79973446/william-leonard-parker

 

Just checked his death cert again. He died at 401 Stonewall Street, Memphis, the home of his daughter Mrs. Willie May Parker Nichols. She and her husband were living in Memphis from at least 1926.

The info about his cause of death says that he died of a cerebral hemorrage 101 days after the actual event but there is no info given about how long he had lived in Memphis prior to death.