John Edward Parsons

John E. Parsons, 1910

John Edward Parsons (October 24, 1829 – January 16, 1915) was a lawyer in New York City. He was president of the New York City Bar Association from 1900 to 1901.

Biography

Parsons was born in New York City in 1829 to Edward Lamb and Matilda Parsons. His father was English and his mother was descended from a prominent Wallingford, Connecticut family. He was educated at New York University and Yale Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1852. Parsons began his legal career as the New York County Assistant District Attorney, where he managed many of the city’s prosecutions. He was a founding member, and later president, of the New York City Bar Association and played an important role in the Bar’s prosecution of corrupt judges Albert Cardozo, John McCunn, D.P. Ingraham, and George Barnard. Later in his career, he started several practices, ultimately founding the firm Parsons, Closson & McIlvaine in 1902. His largest client was the American Sugar Refining Company, the precursor to the Domino Sugar company. In the much-cited case United States v. E.C. Knight Company, Parsons successfully defended American Sugar Refining from an anti-trust suit by the United States government, preserving its over $90 million in assets. He was a member of a number of New York Institutions, including the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He served as president of the New York University Alumni Association and as a member of the university’s counsel.

Sources

• Dumas Malone (ed.) “John Edward Parsons.” Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XIV. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934.
• The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. XLVII, 1916.