Pascal Shelburn Parks
Politician. Born: 1833, Martinsville, Indiana. Died: May 21, 1879, Martinsville, Indiana.
Born at Martinsville, Indiana, in 1833, Pascal Parks was the eldest son of P.M. Parks, a "wealthy citizen." The younger Parks received a good education and graduated with a bachelors degree in law from Indiana University at Bloomington in 1854. "He located in Kansas [in 1857] during the dark and bloody days, and at once took a front rank as a lawyer and politician," reported the Martinsville Republican at the time of his death. Parks practiced law, involved himself in Democratic Party politics, and represented Leavenworth County at the July 1859 Wyandotte Convention. Parks subsequently represented that county in the 1860 territorial legislature, but after some years he returned to his old hometown in Indiana. Tragically, according to his Martinsville obituary, "the baleful habit of intemperance fastened upon him, and bound him in chains which he could not break, keeping him its slave until the last." Nevertheless, he contributed a regular column titled "Shell Barks" to the local newspaper Parks died at Martinsville, Indiana, on May 21, 1879, "a lonely, homeless outcast" for the last twelve years of his short life. 60
Entry: Parks, Pascal Shelburn
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: June 2011
Date Modified: December 2017
The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.
