Parker was also a collateral relative of many major figures in the history of the Iroquois including the tribal leader Cornplanter, Governor Blacksnake, and the great orator Red Jacket. This familial background was a factor which influenced his later role in service to his people. Chief William Parker owned a large farm on the reservation and became a converted member of the newly formed missionary Baptist church. Ely reputedly received his first name from Ely Stone, one of the local founders of the mission. Supposedly the Parker surname derived from a Congregational missionary friend of Chief William Parker, Reverend Samuel Parker (1779-1866), son of a Revolutionary War veteran, who briefly served in western New York until 1812 when he become prominent in missionary activities in the West. According to Arthur C. Parker in a biography, William Parker, his two brothers, and Elizabeth Johnson, Ely's mother, had migrated to Tonawanda from the Allegany Reservation at the same time that Handsome Lake was driven from Allegany to Tonawanda.
Ely Parker received his preliminary formal education at the Baptist boarding school which was associated with the mission church on the Tonawanda Reservation.
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