Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/698

658 , and when the Society for the relief of aged and indigent Unitarian clergymen was formed in 1849 he contributed freely to its support, and was its first vice-president, which post he held fill his death. He was president of the convention of Unitarian ministers that met at Baltimore in 1852. He bequeathed a part of his library to Harvard, which conferred on him the degree of D. D. in 1834. He published &ldquo;The Offering of Sympathy&rdquo; (1829), and some occasional sermons and addresses. &mdash; Francis's brother, George, physician, b. in Boston in 1791; d. there in November, 1849, was graduated at Harvard in 1809, and in medicine at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1813. He gave the ground on which the Harvard medical school in Boston stands. Dr. Parkman was murdered in the college building by Prof. John W. Webster (q. v.). He published &ldquo;Proposals for establishing a Retreat for the Insane&rdquo; (Boston, 1814) and a treatise on &ldquo;Insanity and the Management of the Insane&rdquo; (1817). See &ldquo;Trial of Webster for the Murder of Dr. Parkman&rdquo; (Boston, 1850). &mdash; Francis's son, Francis, author, b. in Boston, Mass., 16 Sept., 1823; d. at Jamaica Plain, Mass., 8 Nov., 1893, was graduated at Harvard, studied law, but abandoned it, and visited Europe in the latter part of 1843 and the beginning of 1844, and in 1846 set out to explore the Rocky mountains. He lived for several months among the Dakota Indians and the still wilder and remoter tribes, and incurred hardships and privations that made him an invalid. An account of this expedition was given in a series of articles in the &ldquo;Knickerbocker Magazine,&rdquo; which were subsequently collected and published in book-form. He afterward engaged in literary work almost exclusively, and, notwithstanding his impaired health, accompanied by partial blindness, has attained high rank as a historian and writer. Mr. Parkman visited France in 1858, 1868, 1872, 1880, and 1881, to examine the French archives in connection with his historical labors. In 1871-'2 he was professor of horticulture in the agricultural school of Harvard. His chief work has been a series of volumes intended to illustrate the rise and fall of the French dominion in America, which are distinguished for brilliant style and accurate research. They are entitled, &ldquo;France and England in North America.&rdquo; Mr. Parkman in 1892 completed the last work of the series, with a few additions to earlier volumes, forming one continuous series of historical narratives. His publications are &ldquo;The California and Oregon Trail&rdquo; (New York, 1849); &ldquo;The Conspiracy of Pontiac&rdquo; (Boston, 1851); &ldquo;Pioneers of France in the New World&rdquo; (1865); &ldquo;The Book of Roses&rdquo; (1866); &ldquo;Jesuits in North America&rdquo; (1867); &ldquo;Discovery of the Great West&rdquo; (1869); &ldquo;The Old Regime in Canada&rdquo; (1874); &ldquo;Count Frontenac and New France&rdquo;(1877); &ldquo;Montcalm and Wolfe&rdquo; (1884); and &ldquo;A Half Century of Conflict&rdquo; (1892).

PARMELEE, Theodore Nelson, journalist, b. in Connecticut in 1804 ; d. in Branford, Conn., 3 July, 1874. He edited the " Middlesex County Ga- zette." was Washington correspondent of the New York " Herald " during the Van Buren and Tyler administrations, and was on terms of intimate ac- quaintanceship with President Tyler and the chief public men of the time. He was editor for several years of the Buffalo " Commercial," and author of some of the biographies in the volume " Men of Progress" (1872),ofaseriesof political reminiscences that were published in " Harper's Magazine," ynder the title " Recollections of an Old Stager," and of numerous fugitive articles.

PARMENTIER, Auguste Henry (par-mon- tyay), French historian, b. in Sancerre in 1752 ; d, in Philadelphia, Pa., about 1816. He was the son of poor laborers, but, having rescued a clergyman from a mad bull, obtained a fellowship in a semi- nary. He was ordained a priest inl786,and stationed in Paris, but, refusing in 1791 to take the oath of allegiance to the civil constitution of the clergy, he emigrated to the United States, where at times he was forced to earn his living as a laborer. He be- came afterward secretary to a wealthy resident of Montreal, who bequeathed him a competency in 1799. He then devoted his time to historical re- searches, and published " Histoire des pionniers fran§ais dans I'Amerique du Nord " (3 vols., Phila- delphia, 1812) and " Histoire de la colonic fran- 9aise en Louisiane " (2 vols., 1815).

PARMENTIER, Jehan (par-mon-tyay), French navigator, b. in Dieppe in 1494 ; d. in Sumatra in 1530. He followed the profession of a pilot, and was among the first that visited Brazil. Entering the service of the famous Dieppe merchant, Ango, he was employed by the latter in missions of ex- ploration along the coast of South America, and discovered, in 1520, the island of Pernambuco. In 1527 he proposed to Ango to reach the western coast of America by way of China and the Indies, and, being given the command of an expedition, had already advanced about 1,000 miles east of Suma- tra when he was compelled by hurricanes to return to that island. A second expedition, undertaken in 1529, was still more unfortunate, as Parmentier was caught by currents and wrecked off Sumatra in the early part of 1530. A narrative of his travels in verse was published after his death under the title "Navigation de Jehan Parmentier, matelot de Dieppe, contenant les merveilles de la mer, du ciel et de la terre " (Paris. 1531 ; reprinted in 1832).

PARRA, Antonio de la (par'-rah), Portuguese naturalist, b. in Lisbon about the middle of the 18th century ; d. early in the 19th. In 1781 he went to Cuba, commissioned by the Spanish gov- ernment to collect objects for the Museum of natu- ral history of Madrid. He published a notable work on Cuban ichtliyology with the title " Peces y erustaceos de la isla de Cuba" (Havana, 1787). This work, the first ever written and published in Cuba upon this branch of natural history, and now very rare, has been translated into French.

PARRA, Francisco, Spanish missionary, b. in Galicia about 1500 ; d. in Yucatan in 1560. He went in his youth to New Spain, where he entered the convent of Mexico, and volunteered for the missions of Guatemala. There he labored assiduously in the conversion of the natives, learned the " three principal dialects of the country, and, to be able to write in them, invented five new characters, which were afterward adopted by Domingo Vice and Francisco Moran in their works. Parra became president of the province of Guatemala and visitor of that of Yucatan. He wrote " Vocabulario Trilingiie Guatemalteco, de los tres principales Idio- mas : Kakchiquel, Quiche y Tzutuchil," the original manuscript of which is to be found in the library of San Francisco in Guatemala.