From To the Descendants of Rufus L & Ruth Parker, compiled by Rufus W. Parker:
"Charles A. Parker was born in Norwood, Ontario on June 18, 1823. Growing up around Norwood he studied cabinet and pattern making and prepared himself for the ministry. He became an ordained minister of the gospel in the Congregational Church. In 1845 he married Isabella Dell Bowes of West Coburg, Canada. Charles continued his trade of pattern making in Newcastle, Ontario and raised his family there.
After receiving many glowing reports of free land in Michigan he sold his holdings and moved the family to Michigan, where he took up logging and farming. After building a couple of log homes in the wilderness he finally moved to a nice valley, built a beautiful home, and founded a town, which he named Coral. Here Charles and Isabella raised their children: Kate, Elizabeth, Ida, Sherman, Ford, Jabe, and my grandfather, Frederick W. Parker.
In 1878 Charles met with several of his neighbors and organized the Congregational Church in the village of Coral, where he was the pastor for several years.
In 1878 his oldest son, J.B., went to Oregon and returned to Coral in 1879, bringing such enthusiastic reports of the then rapidly developing Willamette Valley that his father sold all of his holdings in Michigan and moved his family to Oregon in May of 1880. There he purchased 1200 acres on the Willamette River where he continued to farm until his death in 1889."
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