My Genealogy Hound

Daniel M. Park, city clerk of De Soto, is a native of Syracuse, N. Y., and was born in August, 1850. He is the only survivor of the three children born to Robert and Mary C. (Baker) Park, of Scotch-Irish and English descent, respectively, and natives of New Hampshire and New York. Robert Park remained in his native State until eighteen years of age, when he went to Boston and learned the trade of a mason in all its branches. He subsequently went to Martha’s Vineyard and engaged in contracting, and afterward made a tour of through the now Central States, then mostly Territories, being at Cincinnati and Galena in their early days, finally locating at Syracuse, N. Y., where he married. In 1859 he removed to De Soto, where he passed the remainder of his life, and died in 1877. Daniel M. Park was only nine years old when his parents settled in De Soto, where he was educated in the public schools. When twenty years of age he commenced bridge building on the Iron Mountain Railroad, which he followed ten years. In the fall of 1880 he went to Kansas City, and established a restaurant and confectionery stand, which he conducted six months and afterward was a salesman in that city. Returning to De Soto in the fall of 1881, he was elected city clerk of that place, in the spring of 1883, to which position he has since been continuously re-elected; after election as city clerk he engaged in the real estate and insurance business, in the latter representing the Royal of Liverpool, the Commercial Union of London and the Fireman’s Fund of California. Mr. Park is a strong Republican, and in the campaign of 1884 was elected secretary of the Central County Committee for Jefferson County, being re-elected in 1886. At the time of his first election, the Republican party in Jefferson County stood 400 to 700 in the minority, and in the election of November, 1886, that party elected all but two of their candidates, securing the presiding county judge and a member of the Legislature. He is also a member of the Knights of Honor, and is a young man well esteemed both in social and business circles.