He lost in a landslide.Īfter his defeat, Parker returned to a successful private law practice in New York City. Parker bowed to public and party pressure, resigned from the Court of Appeals and ran unsuccessfully for President. The Republican nominee was incumbent Theodore Roosevelt. In 1904 his name was floated as the possible Democratic candidate for President of the United States. He presided over that court from Januthrough 1904. In November of that year, Parker ran for Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals and won. He then resumed his duties as trial judge until 1897, when Governor Black designated him to the Appellate Division First Department to temporarily replace the ailing Justice George C. Governor Flower appointed Justice Parker to the General Term of the First Department in 1892, where he stayed until 1896 when the Appellate Divisions were created. During that time he was approached by the Democratic Party to run for governor or U.S. When the state constitution was amended in 1889 to create a Second Division of the Court of Appeals, Governor Hill appointed Justice Parker to sit on that bench until its dissolution in 1892.

He was elected the following year to a full 14-year term. In 1885 Governor Hill appointed Parker to the Supreme Court bench to fill a vacancy.

When Cleveland ran for President in 1884, Parker was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He was a delegate to the state convention in 1882 and was an early supporter of Grover Cleveland’s candidacy for governor. Parker rose quickly in Democratic Party ranks.

Parker became active in politics and was elected as Ulster County Surrogate in 1877 at the age of 25. Shortly thereafter, Parker went into partnership with a law school classmate, creating the firm of Parker & Kenyon, which lasted until 1878. After teaching, he accepted a clerkship at the law offices of Schoonmaker & Hardenburgh in Kingston and then enrolled at Albany Law School, from which he graduated in 1873. He attended Cortland Academy and Cortland Normal School, where he trained as a teacher. 81.)Īlton Brooks Parker was born on in Cortland, New York.

(Irving Stone, They Also Ran: The Story of the Men Who Were Defeated for the Presidency, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1943, p. Parker has been described as the most unfairly forgotten of forgotten men.

They also ran by irving stone