The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
Author: Raymond Charles Raser
Hezekiah Parke was born in Preston, New London, CT on April 15, 1740. He made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of liberty and freedom. He gave his life as result of wounds received in the Battle of White Plains, NY on Nov. 13, 1776.
Hezekiah first served at the Lexington Alarm with Capt. James Morgan in April 1775, and again enlisted Sept. 8, 1776 as a Corporal in Capt. James Morgan’s Company, 8th CT Regiment.
Park was the son of Robert Parke who also served in the Revolutionary War and Elizabeth Benjamin. Hezekiah was baptized by Rev. Treat of the Preston First Congregational Church on April 15, 1740. In 1763, at the age of 23, he married Martha Kinne, the daughter of Thomas Kinne III and Hannah Gallup.
Eight children were born to this union. James, Tomas, Elizabeth, Eunice, Ruth, Robert, Hannah, and Hezekiah Jr. Eunice married Gershom Brown who also served in the Revolution.
It was reported Hezekiah possessed considerable means for that period owning land and a slave named “Prince”. At the outbreak of the Revolution, it is reported he gave “Prince” his liberty based upon the condition he would enlist for the cause of the Revolution. “Prince” was reported to have served as one of the bodyguards for General George Washington. When “Prince” returned from the war he rejoined the “Parke” family and accompanied them along with his wife, when widow Parke and family moved to Vermont.
Robert Parke, son of the late Hezekiah Parke, built a cabin next to the Parke family property in Grafton, VT for Prince, who was known as “Capt. Prince Park”, who remained there for the remainder of his life.
Hezekiah Parke’s family history is recorded in The Park-Parke Families of CT by Frank Sylvester Parke, Washington D.C., 1906. DAR Ancestor A087086.
Send a biographical sketch of your patriot!
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
Additional guidelines around the Biography writeup can be found here:
Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.