Arthur Caswell Parker, Sc.D L.H.D. 1881-1955

By Kenton Poole 

Naples Town Historian 

February 2026

If one were to walk down Main Street, Naples, NY today and ask general passers-by do they recognize the name Arthur C. Parker, most would look at you and politely respond with, “No, I don’t.”  But between the years of 1932 and 1955, many archeologists found their way to his home on Parish Hill Road to discuss all things Iroquois. He was recognized throughout New York State as the go-to expert on the Iroquois Confederacy and today one cannot go to an Iroquois Confederacy exhibit and not see multiple references to his work as a cultural anthropologist.

Arthur C. Parker was born on the Cattaraugus Reservation in the township of Collins, Erie County, NY on April 5, 1881. One fourth Indian, he inherited the blood of Seneca Chiefs. His father, Frederick Ely Parker, was the local Seneca Chief; his mother, Geneva Griswold, was a descendent of Matthew Griswald of Connecticut; his uncle, Ely Parker, was military secretary to General Ulysses S Grant. Arthur’s Iroquois name was “Gawasco Wanch” which means “Talking Leaves.”

When Arthur was ten, his father, formerly a reservation school teacher, took a position with the growing railroad industry and the family moved to White Plains, NY. It was here that Arthur received a contemporary education at White Plains High School, unlike the Indian skills education he would have received on the reservation. In White Plains was the American Museum of Natural History and he became fascinated with its collections, and eventually after attending Dickinson College, took up further study with Dr. Frederick Ward Putnam of Harvard University. 

For the the next 20 years he took positions in museums, did field studies, wrote articles for newspapers, and served a long tenure at the State Museum of New York. In 1924 he was offered the position as Director of Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences located in Edgerton Park. It was there that he met Dr. Bausch of Bausch & Lomb who went on to donate his Rochester family property and the financial wherewithal to fulfill Dr. Parker’s wish for a centrally located museum. He then directed the build and the fitting out of the property we know today as the Rochester Museum and Science Center.

In 1932, while Director, he became enamored with the idea that the south end of Canandaigua Lake was the birthplace of the Seneca Nation - with the location of Clark’s Gully being the ancestral home. With the desire to return to his ancestral “roots”, he purchased a cottage on Parish Hill Road overlooking the valley, then an uphill winding dirt road that was devoid of any utilities. He moved his family there, comprised of his second wife Anna Parker and daughter Martha, who graduated from Naples High School in 1946.

It was here that he wrote many of his 350 books and monographs, worked on international correspondence, and created a major Naples event, the Seneca Pageant. Organized by the Nundawaga Society and Folklore, and directed by Dr. Parker, this event was held for three years at the mouth of Clark’s Gully where the first Seneca village was settled. Many from Naples participated in this pageant.

Dr. Parker was only 72 when he died in 1955 at his home in Naples. He was working on a book in three volumes to be called “The Amazing Iroquois”, and he was being feted by cultural and archeological societies all over the world. He was at the top of his game but his heart gave out. His family remained at their home on Parish Hill Road until the death of their daughter Martha Parker 2014.