Surnames: Parker, Mandigo, Garvin, Bissell, Mead

----Source: NEILLSVILLE TIMES (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 02/18/1904

Parker, Hezekiah #2 (4 JUN 1826 - 13 FEB 1904)

That good old soul, Hez Parker, has drawn "the drapery of his couch about him" and passed into the unknown, the unknowable. From pain and weariness he has rest. He was known far and wife as the head of "Parker’s Band," which has been a feature of gala days at Neillsville (Clark Co., Wis.) for a generation. He officiated at the snare drum, fife or base drum, as the exigency of the moment required, but the base drum was his favorite, which he would beat upon both ends with a drumstick in either hand, making the welkin reverberate with his thunderous tattoo until one was minded of the poet’s Andean mountain on mountain call. His girls and boys all learned to drum, and at their farm home west of town the rat-a-tat-tat of his cooper’s maul was not infrequently varied with music by the family band, in days gone by. Hez had a fancy barrel that he used to bring out occasionally as a feature of the band, beating time with the music on the hoops with a hickory maul.

Deceased was born at Rose, Green Co., N.Y., June 4, 1826, where he grew to manhood and married Catharina L. Mandigo, May 27, 1846. In 1857 he moved with his family to Washington Co., Wis., and in 1868 moved to the present home. The wife died in 1880. He married again in 1881 to Emma Mead, who survives him. He was father of twelve children, of whom six survive - Edward and Millard of Spring Valley, Mrs. Isa Garvin of Ballard, Wash., by the first marriage, and retie and John Parker, and Mrs. Lavilla Bissell of Neillsville by the second. He was a faithful Odd Fellow,a nd was a charter member of Stafford Lodge No. 181 and of Neillsville Lodge No. 198. He died Saturday, Feb. 13, 1904, and was buried Monday, the 15th, with services at the M. E. Church, by Rev. G. W. Campbell, under the auspices of the I. O. O. F.

He enlisted as a musician at the time of the Mexican war, and served as such in the recruiting service.

Another landmark of old Neillsville has faded and gone, as others have vanished. Neillsville should possess an old settler’s club house and Valhalla, where the pictures and relics of the old pioneers could be seen by the heart-hungry friends who still live. Hez Parker’s drum would certainly be there.