Joel Palmer

General Joel Palmer (October 4, 1810 – June 9, 1881) was an American pioneer of the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. He was born in Upper Canada, and spent his early years in New York and Pennsylvania before serving as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives.

Palmer traveled to the Oregon Country in 1845. He played a central role in blazing the last leg of the Oregon Trail, the Barlow Road, with Sam Barlow and others. Specifically, Palmer is noted for having climbed high on Mount Hood to observe the surrounding area when the party ran into difficulty. He wrote a popular immigrant guidebook, co-founded Dayton, Oregon, and served as a controversial Indian Affairs administrator. After Oregon became a state, Palmer served in both branches of the Oregon Legislative Assembly. He was selected as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives for one session in 1862, and in 1870 lost a bid to become Governor of Oregon.

The Palmer House, his former home in Dayton, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

Early life Joel Palmer was born in Elizabethtown, Ontario, Canada, on October 4, 1810. His parents, Hannah Phelps and Ephraim Palmer, were American Quakers. When he was two years old, they moved to New York's Catskill Mountains in response to the War of 1812. He received only three months of formal education in elementary school. In 1822, when Palmer was 12, his parents indentured him to the Haworth family for a period of four years. When he gained his freedom, he moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to work on canals and bridges.

He was married to Catherine Coffee from 1830 until her death after childbirth. Palmer married his second wife, Sarah Ann Derbyshire, in 1836, and bought land near Laurel, Indiana, In 1843, he was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana House of Representatives for a one-year term. Representing Franklin County, he was re-elected to the legislature in 1844. the Palmer Glacier on the mountain is named for him.

Because of the onset of winter, the Barlow, Rector, and Palmer parties were forced to leave their wagons on the mountain's eastern foothills. Palmer left on horseback for Oregon City, while Barlow and Rector blazed a trail to Oregon City on foot. This book provided equipment guidance and comprehensive route information for those crossing the Oregon Trail. The publication also had a general description of the Oregon Country, a detailed description of the Willamette Valley, and included a copy of the Organic Laws of Oregon adopted by settlers at the Champoeg Meetings.

Also in 1847, Palmer traveled with his family to Oregon as captain of that year's major wagon train. While passing through the Walla Walla Valley he met Marcus and Narcissa Whitman at their mission shortly before their deaths in the Whitman massacre—the event that precipitated the Cayuse War. Perhaps motivated by meeting the Whitmans, Palmer later returned to serve as a peace commissioner to tribes considering joining the Cayuse. Now a member of the Republican Party, he was named Speaker of the House during that session. This included the 1865 special session of the legislature when Oregon adopted the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that abolished slavery throughout the United States. He ran for governor in the 1870 election as the Republican candidate, but was narrowly defeated by La Fayette Grover, largely for his Indian policies. Palmer's name is one of 158 memorialized in the frieze of the two chambers of the Oregon Legislative Assembly at the Oregon State Capitol, with his located in the Senate chamber. During World War II the liberty ship SS Joel Palmer, hull number 2025, was built and named in his honor. The Oregon Historical Society issues the Joel Palmer Award for the year's best article in its quarterly publication, Oregon Historical Quarterly.