Cortlandt Parker, president and publisher of the Recorder Publishing Company in Bernardsville, N. J., died on Monday at Norwood Caritas Hospital in Norwood, Mass.
The company publishes 17 weekly newspapers in Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset and Essex Counties in New Jersey.
Mr. Parker, who began his journalism career as an editorial assistant at The New York Sun, started his company in 1955, when he and his wife, Nancy, founded The Morris Observer in Morris Township. They went on to buy other newspapers, including The Bernardsville News, and other newspaper companies. Among their acquisitions was the 1991 purchase of the Eagle-Courier group in New Jersey.
In 1982, Mr. Parker and his wife started Greenvale Vineyards in Portsmouth, R.I. They became co-publishers of several newspapers about the wine industry in the Finger Lakes region of New York and in New England, Long Island and Virginia.
Mr. Parker is survived by his wife; two daughters, Elizabeth K. Parker of Millington, N.J., and Nancy Gray Parker Wilson of Boston; two sons, Cortlandt Jr. of Pohatcong, N.J., and Stephen Ward of Bernardsville, N.J.; and 14 grandchildren.
The New York Times, August 08, 2002, p. 23.