Parker Hardin French (1826 – 1878)Goodbody, Emmet Joseph (Joe), Kentucky Barracuda: Parker Hardin French (1826-1878) Mascot Books, Herndon: 2018; Johnson, Kenneth M., The Strange Eventful History of Parker H. French, Glen Dawson, Los Angeles: 1958. was an adventurer, entrepreneur, and swindler, labeled and chronicled by author Joe Goodbody as the “Kentucky Barracuda.” As a runaway child he fought as a member of the Royal Navy in the First Opium War as a cabin boy and a "powder monkey". At only 22, he was a commission merchant and a year later built the first ocean going ship on the upper Mississippi. Before he was 30, he was the leader of an infamous and fraudulent gold rush expedition; implicated in an irregular invasion of Cuba; jailed bandit and then military hero in Mexico; lawyer, district attorney, legislator, journalist, and political enforcer in California; he was a real estate developer; lawyer; journalist; part of a conspiracy to invade Mexico; suspected seditionist agitator and Confederate agent; jailed as a political prisoner; and lawyer and purveyor for Union troops. His final days were spent in obscurity but the period was still peppered with the occasional swindle that garnered both regional and national attention.Goodbody, Emmet Joseph (Joe), Kentucky Barracuda: Parker Hardin French (1826-1878) Mascot Books, Herndon: 2018
Youth, marriage, and his first scam Ned McGowan, who knew French in 1854 and 1855 in California, summarized his life in two newspapers articles in 1879;San Francisco Daily Evening Post, January 4 and 11, 1879 Kenneth Johnson republished them with a commentary in 1958.Johnson, Kenneth M., The Strange Eventful History of Parker H. French, Glen Dawson, Los Angeles: 1958. McGowan cited no evidence, as his source 25 years earlier was French himself.McGowan may have interviewed French's wife as well. McGowan related that Parker Hardin French was born around 1826 in Kentucky, was orphaned while very young, taken in by a neighboring family of a Judge Edwards and married his foster sister, Lucretia Edwards. McGowan's version probably conflated a few different stories that Parker French told about his youth, and the account likely got distorted with time. Hampered by lack of access to genealogical records and unassisted by the digital age, historians have accepted the McGowan version of French's early life. But the real story is much different.Goodbody, Emmet Joseph (Joe), Kentucky Barracuda: Parker Hardin French (1826-1878) Mascot Books, Herndon: 2018 Parker Hardin French was born on April 2, 1826, in Mason County, Kentucky. His parents were Hiram Duncan French ( – 1872) and Margaret Calhoun Hardin (1802–1832). Hiram was from a farming family that had relocated from Virginia to Kentucky in the early 1790s. Margaret, the daughter of Martin L. Hardin, was the progeny of a highly cultured, prominent, and powerful Kentucky family full of military heroes, lawyers, judges, and politicians. For the first several years, the young Parker French lived on what was likely a struggling farm, with older sister Juliet Catherine (1822–1905), and younger sister Mary Jane (1830–1913). In 1832, sister Arzelia (1832–1924) was born, possibly precipitating the death of Parker's mother in October.Death Certificate of Parker Hardin French, recorded in the Health Department of the City of New York, which lists his parents as Hiram Duncan French and Margaret C. Hardin; Return of a Marriage between Parker H. French and Reba B. Claggett, lists same parents. It was recorded in the Bureau of Records of Vital Statistics, Health Department of the City of New York on July 1, 1875. The Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Volume 2 (Kentucky State Historical Society, 1904) shows parents of Arzelia as Hiram D. French and Margaret Hardin. Margaret Hardin French died October 24, 1832 per obituary held by the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center. The young Parker's life changed dramatically when his maternal uncle and namesake, Judge Parker Calhoun Hardin (1800–1876), took in the young boy. Hardin treated the boy like a son, fostered his development and lifelong connections and provided the best education available to affluent antebellum Kentuckians. Boosted by access to an extensive and valuable private library French inevitably acquired what the local paper described as a "disposition to roam."Adair County News: “Many Years Ago” December 5, 1900; “Interesting Reminiscences” April 16, 1902; “The Hardin Family” Feb 24 1902 “Sketches of Adair County” Mar 20, 1918 “Many Years Ago,” Parker Hardin French caught wanderlust and ran away from home. He signed on with the British Navy and sailed on a man-of-war as a "powder monkey" during the First Opium War (18391842). He returned full of stories of his adventures and financial coups.Johnson, Kenneth M., The Strange Eventful History of Parker H. French, Glen Dawson, Los Angeles: 1958 When French returned from service to Queen Victoria, Hardin sent him to Alton, Illinois to live with the powerful and politically connected Judge Cyrus Edwards, a former Kentucky lawyer well known to the Hardin family. He married the Judge's daughter Lucretia in April 1849, with whom he would sire four children: Matilda Strong, 1850–1921; Hugh Murray 1854–1912; Nancy Reed 1858-Unk; and Ellie Lucretia 1866-Unk.Dodd, Jordan, Liahona Research, comp. Illinois Marriages, 1790–1860 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. It was in nearby St. Louis that year that he put together his first scam. Doing business as "Messrs. French & Co." French launched an unfinished ship, promising to transport gold seekers to California.Daily Missouri Republican, May 4, 1849. The 700-ton bark, christened the Matilda, was still unfinished when "she was sold by the Sheriff, to pay for her material and labor."New York Times, December 28, 1855 McGowan wrote that French absconded, leaving "behind him a number of debts for borrowed money and for shipbuilding."Johnson, p. 3.
Captain Parker H. French's California Expedition
French and his wife arrived in New York City about the beginning of 1850. Daughter Matilda Strong French was born there in February.Death record for Matilda Strong French, Dade County FloridaSacramento Daily Union, January 2, 1854, reporting on the arrival of the Sierra Nevada, wrote: "PASSENGERS. ... Capt P H French lady infant and servant." One expedition member, Baldridge, reported that French mentioned in May 1850 a wife and child in New York. McGowan mentions a daughter in San Jose in 1854. Before long, French – having granted himself the rank of "Captain" – had taken an office in the Tammany Building,Miles, William, A Journal of the Suffering and Hardships of Capt. Parker H. French's Overland Expedition to California in 1850, Ye Galleon Press, Fairfield, Washington: 1970. Originally published in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: 1851 had placed ads in the newspapers, and had flyers printed describing his plan to lead an expedition to the gold fields of California for a fee of $250.While he was in St. Louis in 1849 the Pioneer Line was offering a paid expedition to California for a fee $200. The company claimed it would get enrollees there within 60 days. Clearly, French copied that proposal. Expeditioners of the Pioneer Line suffered greatly. See Gordon, Mary McDougall, ed. Overland to California with the Pioneer Line: The Gold Rush Diary of Bernard J. Reid, Stanford Univ. Press: 1981. One flyer began, "From NEW YORK to Port LAVACA, in Texas, by Steamship, thence by comfortable and easy wagon coaches ... over the gently swelling uplands of Western Texas," along the Gila River, down to the Colorado, and, finally, across "the magnificent plains of California" (the Colorado Desert) to San Francisco.Johnson reproduced a handbill in his edition of McGowan. Johnson credits the Meriden Gravure Co. for the reproduction of the original, which was then in the collection of Thomas W. Streeter, who later donated it to the Beinecke Library at Yale. Moreover, as John Holmes, who signed on with his son for $500, pointed out, "French obligated himself to the company that he would take us through to California in sixty days, and to pay us five dollars each per day for every day we were more than sixty, if any, on the journey."Holmes, John, The Adventures of John Holmes of Canaan on the Overland Expedition to California with Capt. Parker H. French in 1850, The Cadmus Book Shop, New York: 1916, p. 1. Originally published in the Maine Skowhegan Press and reproduced as a broadside by E.D. Wright, Springfield, Vermont: December 1873.
Initially, about 100 men signed on, some for a reduced fee in exchange for the promise of work on the trail. They sailed in late April for Port Lavaca via Havana, New Orleans, and Galveston. French himself was not aboard. An associate, North West, took charge of this group while French stayed behind signing up more men.Baldridge mentions this. Also see Strickland, Rex W., "Six Who Came to El Paso," Southwestern Studies, Vol. 1, Number 3, Fall 1963, Texas Western College Press, p. 21. He was also still completing arrangements for the journey. The first sailing of 100 men got to Port Lavaca on or about May 9. There they discovered that there were neither the mules French had promised would be waiting, nor any wagons for the absent mules to pull. They made camp and waited in growing fear and anger.
In New York French signed up many more paying customers from a new office on Wall Street.The address on the accompanying flyer is 41 Wall Street. The person named on the flyer, T. W. Douglas, was an agent for the US Mail Line and the office appears to be connected to that firm, whose steamers French booked. George Law, who then ran the firm, was a major supporter of Lopez. He acquired some wagons (from Dan Rice's circus), cases of rifles, and other gear. It was all loaded along with "as much gold ... as two men could carry ..."Rounds, Spafford Ferdinand, unpublished narrative. Held by Lorena Chalkley of Embro, Ontario, Canada. aboard the steamer Georgia which finally sailed on May 13. The government had delayed the departure for a week to search the ship seeking evidence of connections to a suspected forthcoming attack on Cuba led by López, which, in fact, occurred the same day French and his group arrived at Havana harbor.
A delay at Havana, including a change of ships and a threatened search consequent of suspicions of French's connection to the López filibuster, resulted in missing their ship connection in New Orleans. This meant a further delay of nearly a week. French put the men up in the best hotels available and all lived well in New Orleans – on French – as the month of May ended. On June4, French and the additional recruits arrived at Port Lavaca. Those stranded there for nearly a month greeted him with a mixture of relief and fury. When the new arrivals discovered the absence of mules, they, too, became much concerned. French, often described as remarkably persuasive, convinced the crowd that all would be well."... when he had been among them two hours, they were nearly all satisfied that they had done him a great injustice and convinced that he was the greatest genius of the age." Baldridge, p. 5. He purchased young and unbroken mules somewhere, and, after much more delay, they finally made it to San Antonio via Victoria on July 6. There, as he had in Victoria, French produced such papers as military orders, bank drafts, and an unlimited line of credit drawn on Howland and Aspinwell, a major New York shipping firm. All of it was bogus. He refurbished, re-supplied, bought horses, cattle, and many, better, mules. New recruits signed up. The train of 33 colorful, individually named wagons left San Antonio with much fanfare in mid-July. The sixty days promised for the entire trip had expired and San Diego was still 1,500 miles away.
End of the expedition