Parsons, Solomon

Born: 1810-06-10 Gloucester, Massachusetts

Died: 1891-01-07 Boston, Massachusetts

Parsons married Caroline Ann Edmands in September 1837, and the couple moved west to Illinois. Voters elected Parsons as a Democrat to the Illinois House of Representatives, where he represented Pike County from 1840 to 1842. In 1850, Parsons was an attorney in Griggsville and owned $2,500 in real property. After John Wood resigned from the Illinois Senate in 1854, Parsons succeeded him and served out his term. From 1861 into the 1880s, he was superintendent and then secretary of the Baptist Tremont Temple in Boston, Massachusetts.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Griggsville, Pike County, IL, 67; History of Pike County, Illinois (Chicago: Chas C. Chapman, 1880), 879; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 209, 218; Illinois Journal (Springfield), 11 February 1854, 2:3; Gravestone, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA; Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2011), 185; U.S. Census Office, Ninth Census of the United States (1870), Ward 1, Charlestown, Middlesex County, MA, 180; U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995: Boston, Massachusetts, City Directory, 1882 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2011), 816.