Samuel Browne Parsons

Born in 1819, Samuel Bowne Parsons was a member of the Parsons family of Flushing, New York, a community with deep roots in horticulture and public life. He worked as a nurseryman, continuing a family tradition tied to plants, cultivation, and local enterprise.

Historical material from Bowne House remembers him not only as a businessman but also as part of a household connected to antislavery activism. Their records note that Samuel Bowne Parsons and his brothers had documented links to prominent activists involved in the Underground Railroad in New York.

Parsons died in 1906 at age 86. He is often placed in a family line that connects 19th-century horticulture with later American landscape design through his son, Samuel Bowne Parsons Jr.