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| name = Edmund Parker |
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| birth_name = <!– only use if different from name –> |
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1827|12|24}} |
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| birth_place = [[Virginia]], [[United States]] |
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| death_date = {{Death date and age|1898|12|30|1827|12|24}} |
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| employer = [[Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association]] |
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”’Edmund Parker”’ (December 24, 1827 – December 30, 1898) was an [[United States|American]] [[Sexton (office)|sexton]] who served as Keeper of the Tomb at [[Mount Vernon]], the location of the sarcophagus containing the remains of [[George Washington]], from 1874 to 1898.<ref name=”gott”>{{cite web |title=“Guardian of the Tomb” (August 14, 1898) |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/the-washington-post-guardian-of-the-tomb-august-14-1898/ |website=encyclopediavirginia.org |publisher=[[Encyclopedia Virginia]] |access-date=December 2, 2025}}</ref><ref name=”scott”>{{cite book |last1=Casper |first1=Scott |title=Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine |date=2009 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=1429931213 |pages=37-44}}</ref> |
”’Edmund Parker”’ (December 24, 1827 – December 30, 1898) was an [[United States|American]] [[Sexton (office)|sexton]] who served as Keeper of the Tomb at [[Mount Vernon]], the location of the sarcophagus containing the remains of [[George Washington]], from 1874 to 1898.<ref name=”gott”>{{cite web |title=“Guardian of the Tomb” (August 14, 1898) |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/the-washington-post-guardian-of-the-tomb-august-14-1898/ |website=encyclopediavirginia.org |publisher=[[Encyclopedia Virginia]] |access-date=December 2, 2025}}</ref><ref name=”scott”>{{cite book |last1=Casper |first1=Scott |title=Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine |date=2009 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=1429931213 |pages=37-44}}</ref> |
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Latest revision as of 15:41, 3 December 2025
Edmund Parker (December 24, 1827 – December 30, 1898) was an American sexton who served as Keeper of the Tomb at Mount Vernon, the location of the sarcophagus containing the remains of George Washington, from 1874 to 1898.[1][2]
Parker was born into slavery in 1827 near Charleston, Virginia and sent to work at Mount Vernon in 1841. While Washington had emancipated the Mount Vernon slaves, subsequent masters of the plantation had resumed the practice of using enslaved labor. He was married in the library of the main house in the 1850s to Susan. According to Parker, they were wed “under the room where the General died”. With her, he had nineteen children.[1][2]
During the American Civil War, Parker escaped Mount Vernon and fled north, joining a unit of United States zouaves as camp cook. Following the capitulation of the Confederate States, many former Mount Vernon Slaves — Parker among them — returned to the estate to, according to Matthew Costello, “reunite families and rebuild their community”.[3][1]
Parker was among those returnees offered employment at the now-former plantation by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (MVLA), which had acquired the property to maintain as a historical site. Beginning in 1882, he was assigned to serve as the uniformed watchman of the Washington tomb, a continuance of the practice by which Black men had served as tomb guardians since the site’s construction in the 1830s. Parker was popular among visitors to Mount Vernon for his stories about life in antebellum Virginia. According to Parker, he was on duty during visits to the tomb by Pedro II of Brazil and Edward VII (as Prince of Wales).[1][2][4][3]
Parker died of cancer at the home of one of his children after a period of illness. He was buried in elaborate funeral ceremonies organized by the MVLA.[2]
The practice of appointing Black men to serve as keepers of the Washington tomb was ended in 1965.[4]
