The following is an abstract of the memorial of ex-Governor and Judge Joel Parker prepared at the request of the New Jersey Historical Society by Maj. James S. Yard, Editor of the Monmouth Democrat, Freehold, and read at a meeting of the Society at Newark, May 17, 1888:

It so came about, under the guidance of Divine Providence, that Joel Parker became Governor of New Jersey at the most critical period in the history of the War of the Rebellion. He was then forty-six years old, and in the prime of his intellectual and physical strength and vigor. In 1847 he was elected to the Assembly, and in 1852 he was appointed as Prosecutor of the Pleas for Monmouth. In both of these positions he discharged his public duties with signal ability. In the Assembly, although the youngest member of that body, he distinguished himself throughout the State by introducing a measure, which afterwards became a law, to equalize taxation by taxing personal as well as real property.

In December, 1857, at a meeting of the Regimental Officers, he was elected Brigadier General of the Monmouth and Ocean Brigade of State Militia, and proceeded to thoroughly organize the corps. At the outbreak of the war Maj. Gen. Moore, Commander of the Third Division of the State Militia, resigned on account of age and infirmity, and on the 7th of May, 1861, General Parker was nominated by GOV. OLDEN, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate as his successor. This appointment was made for the purpose of promoting volunteering for the suppression of the rebellion. Party strife at this time was rife and bitter, but Gen. Parker's patriotic efforts were generally recognized and commended alike by party friends and foes, and put New Jersey in the front rank of the loyal States.

In the Fall of 1862, after the defeat of the operations against Richmond, and the famous seven days' fight on the Peninsula, and when the fate of our national existence seemed to tremble in the balance, Gen. Parker was nominated for Governor and was elected by a majority three times greater than had ever before been given in the State for any candidate for that position. His election gave a new impetus to the national cause, and his administration, which in all respects was eminently a successful one, was especially distinguished for its efficiency in promoting enlistments in the army, and for successfully keeping up volunteering for this purpose for a year after all other states had been obliged to resort to the draft to fill their regiments.

Through these efforts New Jersey is enabled to boast that no man was ever taken unwillingly from the State to fill the quota of troops demanded by the general government.

His action during the invasion of Pennsylvania by the rebel forces is still fresh in the public mind. Before the people of that State had recovered from the panic caused by this invasion, he had rallied regiments of Jerseymen to the standard and was marching them to their defence, for which service he was publicly complimented by President Lincoln and Gov. Curtin. In 1864, when Maryland was invaded and the National Capitol was threatened, he did not wait to hear from the authorities at Washington, but immediately set about the raising of reinforcements to drive the invaders back. These are but instances of the foresight, vigor and patriotism which characterized his efforts throughout his administration down to the close of the war.

In 1863, after the Battle of Gettysburg, and without waiting for the action of the Legislature, Governor Parker dispatched an agent to the battle-field to personally superintend, with great care, the removal of the remains of the New Jersey dead. A plot of ground was secured on the field, the bodies were carefully re-interred, and the ground was set apart for this sacred purpose, with appropriate ceremonies, in the presence of a vast concourse of people assembled to witness them.

But his efforts did not stop at the operations in the field. They extended also to the care of the Jersey soldiers in their camps and hospitals and of their families at home. One of his first acts as Governor was to establish an Agency at Washington to look after the welfare of the New Jersey troops, to facilitate transfers and discharges in deserving cases, and to alleviate the sufferings of the sick and wounded. The agency also received money from the soldiers in the field and transmitted it to their families without expense to them. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were thus received and transmitted, and thousands of soldiers and soldiers' families remember with gratitude, to-day, his efforts to promote their welfare, and bless him for his kindly sympathy. He also instituted inquiries into the condition of the disabled soldiers and their families, and appointed a commission to report what legislation was necessary to relieve them. In his second annual message he recommended the establishment of a Soldiers' Home, or Retreat, out of which grew the present admirable provision made by the State for that purpose.

Under most, if not all of the State Constitutions, during the first years of the war there was no provision for taking the votes of soldiers in the field. This omission was not discovered in time to provide in New Jersey for the election of 1864, it requiring two years to amend the Constitution; but the Legislature of that year adopted resolutions requesting the military authorities to furlough the soldiers entitled to vote, so far as it could be done without detriment to the service, to go home and vote. Gov. Parker, in transmitting these resolutions to the President, expressed the wish that all New Jersey soldiers, without distinction of party, who could be spared, should be allowed to come home on election day, and particularly desired that soldiers in hospitals who were able to travel, be allowed to visit their homes for that purpose. He also wrote to the State Agent at Washington, instructing him to assist the soldiers in getting furloughs. The Constitution on this point was afterwards amended.

Gov. Parker was always frank and outspoken in his views in regard to the conduct of the war, as he was on all other matters of public policy, and while frequently differing in opinion with the administration at Washington, he never faltered in the discharge of his duty to sustain by all means in his power the effort to restore the Union, or in his belief in the ultimate success of the National cause. He was a man of strong convictions, and necessarily and essentially a party man, neglecting no honest and fair opportunity to advance the interests of his party, yet his first consideration was always the public interests. In all of his appointments, military and civil, he carefully scrutinized the character and qualifications of the candidate. No question of party ever entered into any of his appointments to the military service, while in his appointments to the civil service the fitness of the appointee generally silenced the clamor of the friends of the disappointed candidates; and while this is the rock upon which the popularity of the executive is usually wrecked, and while he made more appointments than any other man who has ever filled the executive chair of our State, yet he returned at the close of both his terms of office with his popularity unimpaired.

Joel Parker was innately and thoroughly a Jerseyman, proud of his State and of its history. He neglected no opportunity to eulogize it, and warmly resented any indignity aimed at it. But his patriotism was greater than his State pride - it embraced our whole country. In his love for its institutions and in his faith in its future glory he never wavered. He was beyond dispute the foremost man of his generation in his native State in all those qualities that go to make a man useful to and beloved by his fellow-men. In his private life he was pure and above reproach. He was not a brilliant man, as the world reckons it, but he was a great man, broad, liberal, conscientious, faithful and true, and deserves to be conspicuously honored by the generation that he served so long and so well.

Joel Parker was born in Freehold township on the 24th of November, 1816, in a house still standing on the Mount Holly road about four miles west of Freehold, in what is now Millstone township. A small village known as Smithburg has grown up around it recently. His father was Charles Parker, who was born in the same neighborhood, and who was Sheriff of the county, member of the Assembly, and for thirteen years State Treasurer and at the same time State Librarian. His mother, who was also a native of the county as it was then constituted, was a daughter of Capt. Joseph Coward, of the Continental Army. He received his primary education at the old Trenton Academy, and was prepared for college at the Lawrenceville High School. In the meantime he spent two years as manager on a farm which his father then owned near Colts Neck. He was graduated at Princeton in 1839, and immediately commenced the study of law in the office of the Hon. Henry W. Green, at Trenton, and was admitted to the Bar in 1842, when he located at Freehold and commenced the practice of his profession.

In 1840 he cast his first Presidential vote for Martin Van Buren, the nominee of the Democratic party. In 1844 he entered the political arena in support of the election of James K. Polk as President, and distinguished himself in that campaign as a public speaker.

Although his long and busy life was crowded with great public cares, he did not forget the minor public duties nor the obligations of social life. He was one of the original members of the lodge of Odd Fellows of his town and always retained an interest in its welfare; in his earlier years he took an active part in its affairs, filling the different official positions and representing it in the State Grand Lodge. He was also a member of the Masonic lodge of his town. In both of these organizations he remained an honored member up to the time of his death. He was for many years a member of the Union Fire Company of Trenton, and of the Fire Department of Freehold, aiding both with his counsels and his purse. He was also a member of the Commandery of the State of Pennsylvania of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; a member of the Tammany Society of New York City, and an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of New Jersey. In 1881 he united with the Presbyterian Church of Freehold, on confession of faith, and afterwards remained an acceptable member and communicant of that church. In 1843 he was married to Maria M., eldest daughter of Samuel R. Gummere, Clerk in Chancery of New Jersey, who survives him, with two sons, Charles and Frederick, both practicing lawyers of some years' standing at the Bar of Monmouth County, and a daughter, Bessie. On Saturday, the 31st day of December, 1887, after holding a special session of the Burlington County Courts, he went to Philadelphia, and feeling unwell he called at the house of a friend, where, in a few minutes, he received a stroke of paralysis. He died on the following Monday, shortly after midnight, surrounded by the immediate members of his family. He rallied sufficiently on Saturday evening to recognize his wife, but afterwards never regained consciousness.

His personal appearance was imposing. He was slightly over six feet high, with a massive frame admirably proportioned, a head well poised, manly and dignified in his bearing, easy and attractive in his manner; in public, free and self-possessed, easily approached by the humblest member of the community, but never condescending to unseemly familiarity. He was persistent in the pursuit of the object in which he was interested, and in support of the cause which he had espoused; never domineering, but persuasive and conciliating; avoiding personal antagonisms he skilfully laid his course between contending factions and reached the goal while others were wrangling by the way. Conservative in all his views and sometimes considered so almost to a fault, he was always a safe leader in public affairs and reliable as a personal adviser.

When he died his fellow citizens throughout the State - all ranks and conditions of men - alike pressed forward to lay their tribute of affection and regard upon his bier. The Governor issued a proclamation reciting the eminent services he had rendered the State, and caused public honors to be paid to his memory; the business of the courts was suspended while eulogies were pronounced and resolutions of respect and condolence were placed upon their records; organizations, public and social, vied with each other in manifestations of friendship and esteem, and the press united in one common expression of high appreciation of his life and public services.

At the session of the Legislature of 1888 a joint resolution was passed by both Houses providing for the purchase of a portrait of Gov. Parker. This portrait was afterwards painted by Julian Scott, and hung with appropriate ceremonies in the Assembly Chamber on the 4th of February, 1889.

"STRONG, 'mid the perils that beset his time, 
STRONG, in the chair of State he honored long, 
STRONG, in devotion to his home and friends, 
Wherever fortune found or placed him. STRONG. 

"KIND, with a kindness words cannot express, 
KIND, with a sweetness born of noble mind, 
KIND, let the tear-drop pathos started, speak; 
To youth and age, to poor and sorrowing, KIND. 

"GREAT, in the virtues that adorned his life, 
GREAT, in the annals of his native State, 
GREAT, in his fearless championship of right, 
In every trust and station, truly GREAT."* 

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*Frank P. McDerrnott, Freehold, in the Monmouth Democrat, Jan. 12, 1888.