J. (Johannes) Froebel-Parker was born in Marathon, N.Y., near the hamlet of Lapeer, N.Y., where his Parker ancestors from Rhode Island had received Revolutionary War land grants in the late 18th century.

Like many of the frontier areas west of the Appalachian Mountains, the majority of New York State east of the Hudson and upstream from the Mohawk River Valley were generally considered wilderness territories and were often too remote for the development of any sizeable settlements. However in the few decades after the Revolutionary War, the region was soon surveyed, divided into land grants, and sold for the purpose of converting wilderness areas into tillable agricultural lands.