Thomas Jefferson Parker, born in Junius, Seneca County, in 1813, came from a long military tradition and became the foremost military figure in Cattaraugus County in the 19th century. After moving with his parents to Hamburg at age 10, he came to Gowanda, then called Lodi, in 1830 to join his brother Francis in the tailoring business, later taking over the trade and also making harnesses and saddles, though he lost his shop in the great fire of April 10, 1856, and again in a disastrous flood in 1861. Active in the state militia from the 1830s, he organized the 64th New York State Militia in 1853 and, when the Civil War began in 1861, offered its services to Gov. Edwin D. Morgan, took it to Elmira, and received his commission as colonel. The 64th New York, known as the Cattaraugus Regiment, left Elmira in December 1861 for winter camp at Alexandria, Virginia, and in the spring joined the Army of the Potomac in Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. At Fair Oaks on June 1, 1862, near Richmond, the regiment suffered 173 casualties, Parker's horse was shot from under him, and he assumed brigade command after Gen. Oliver Otis Howard was severely wounded. In a letter to his wife the next day, Parker wrote that his men made a determined stand, held their ground against Mississippi and Alabama troops, took prisoners, and suffered about 150 killed, wounded, and missing while he escaped unwounded. During the Seven Days, after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee forced McClellan's retreat, the 64th New York fought rear-guard actions at Gaines Mills, Peach Orchard, Savage's Station, White Oak Swamp, Glendale, and Malvern Hill before retiring to Harrison's Landing on the James River. Soon afterward Parker resigned his commission and returned to Gowanda because heavy cannonading had caused permanent hearing loss. In civilian life he served as Persia town justice from 1852 to 1882, deputy county clerk from 1871 to 1874, and deputy clerk of the State Assembly in 1872–73. He married Lavina Hooker in Perrysburg in 1841, had six children, and died at his home on Walnut Street on May 26, 1908, at age 94; he was buried in Pine Hill Cemetery.