WI BIO - Dane Co - PARKER, Fletcher Andrew
Biographical Review of Dane County, WI. Chicago: Biographical Review Pub. Co. 
1893, Vol II, pp 403-404

Fletcher Andrew PARKER, professor of music in the University of Wisconsin 
[Madison, Dane County, WI], is a native of Ashland County, Ohio, born 26 
December 1842. His parents, S. P. and Elizabeth PARKER, were born, reared, 
and married in Ontario, Canada. His father was a carriage maker. On leaving 
Canada, he [the father] located in Ashland County, Ohio, where he resided a 
number of years, moving from there to Fulton [Whiteside County], Illinois, 
and several years later to Quincy [Adams County], Illinois. He and his wife 
are now residents of Omaha, Nebraska, aged seventy-five and seventy-six 
years, respectively. They had five children, three of whom are living, two 
sons and one daughter. Fletcher A. was the second born.

Professor [Fletcher Andrew] PARKER received his early education in the public 
schools of his native county. He then became a student at the Northwestern 
University at Evanston [Cook County], Illinois. At the end of his junior 
year, he left school and enlisted in the Chicago Mercantile Battery, and 
continued in the service until the close of 1864, in the Western Department, 
under Generals Grant, Sherman, and Banks; was at the siege of Jackson, 
Mississippi, and in the engagements at Arkansas Post and Vicksburg; later 
transferred to the Department of the Gulf, under Gen. Banks; was in Texas at 
Matagorda Bay. While at Matagorda Bay he received orders to go to New 
Orleans to be examined for a commission, and was made 1st Lieutenant of the 
1st Louisiana Heavy Artillery, a regiment officered by men chosen from 
various Northern regiments. In the fall of 1864 he resigned and returned 
home.

Having a talent for music and deciding to educate himself for the musical 
profession, he went to Boston in 1865 and entered the Boston Musical School, 
where he graduated in 1867. He then taught music in Boston until 1868. 
Returning to Illinois, he located at Bloomington [McLean County] in 1868, and 
until 1874 was actively engaged in his profession there. That year he went 
to Europe. He spent one year studying music at Stuttgart, Germany, [p 404] 
and six months as teacher in the Royal Musical Academy for the Blind in 
London. He was then offered a permanent position as teacher in the same 
institution, but declined and returned to Bloomington, Illinois, where he was 
elected dean of the College of Music of the Wesleyan College, remaining there 
until 1878. That year he was elected to the professorship of music in the 
University of Wisconsin, where he has since remained, filling the position 
with much credit to himself and also the university.

He is vice president of the National Society for the promotion of musical 
art, and has been organist at the First Presbyterian Church of Madison ever 
since he came here. His contributions to musical literature have been 
chiefly sacred music. He has assisted in publishing a number of hymnals and 
collections of sacred songs.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly