Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/199

 PALMER

PALMER

was assigned to the military division of Ken- tucky, wliere he was military governor and had charge of the Freedman's bureau, and was mus- tered out of the service, Sept. 1, 1866. He was the Republican governor of Illinois, 1869-73, de- clined renomiuation in 1872, and returned to the Democratic party. He was active in the can- vass of 1876, speaking in all parts of the coun- try for Tilden and Hendricks. He was the de- feated Democratic candidate for U.S. senator in 1877, when John A. Logan was elected, and in 1883, when Governor Cullom was elected. He was defeated for governor of Illinois in 1888 by Jo- seph W. Fifer, and was elected to the U.S. senate by the Democratic legislature in 1891, serving 1891-97. In 1896 he refused to indorse the plat- form adopted by the Democratic national con- vention at Chicago, and when the national con- vention of the Gold Democrats met at Indianapo- lis, Sept. 2, 1896, General Palmer accepted the nomination for President, with Simon B. Buck- ner of Kentucky for Vice-President. In the elec- tion of November, the Palmer and Buckner electors received 133,148 popular votes, but none in the electoral college. In the presidential can- vass of 1900, General Palmer supported the Re- publican nominees and announced his intention to vote for McKinkley and Roosevelt electors. He was married in December, 1842, to Malinda, daughter of Julius Neely. Mrs. Palmer died in 1886. They had ten children, and at Senator Palmer's death, two sons and four daughters sur- vived. His eldest son, John Mayo Palmer, was his law partner, and his youngest son, L. J. Pal- mer, was a lawyer at Rock Springs, Wyo. In 1888 he married as his second wife l^Irs. Hannah M. Kimball, daughter of J. L. Lamb of Spring- field, III. In 1899 congress voted him a pension of $100 per month. His pei'sonal recollections, The Story of an Earnest Life, were published in 1901. He died in Springfield, 111., Sept. 25, 1900.

PALMER, John Williamson, author, was born in Baltimore, Md., April 4, 1825 ; son of Ed- ward and Katherine (Croxall) Palmer ; grandson of John and Mary (Preston) Palmer, and of James and Eleanor (Gittings) Croxall, all of the Maryland colony, and a descendant of Edward Palmer (1572-1625), of AVarwickshire, England, Oxford scholar and antiquary, who purchased and gave his name to " Palmer's Island," in the mouth of the Susquehannah river (1622), and was " Projector there of the first College and School of Arts in North America" (1624). John W. Palmer was graduated from the University of Maryland, M.D., in 1847, and went to San Francisco, Cal., in 1849, where he Avas city physician, 1.849-50. He was surgeon of a war- steamer of the East India company, and served in the second Burmese war, 1851-52, having vis-

ited Hawaii, China, Malacca, Burmah, Aracan and Hindostan. He returned to the United States in 1853 ; wrote for the leading magazines, and was married in 1855 to Henrietta Lee of Bal- timore, Md., who was later known as a writer for several periodicals and as the author of Tlie Stratford Gallery (1859), and Home-Life in the Bible (1881). Dr. Palmer was the Confederate war-correspondent of the New York Tribune, 1862-64. In 1870 he returned to New York city, where he resumed literary work, and was an edi- tor on the original staffs of the Century and Standard dictionaries. He translated Michelefs "L'Amour" and ''La Femme " (1859), and Le- gouve's "Histoire Morale des Femmes" (1860), and is the author of : The Queen's Heart, comedy (1858); TJie New and the Old (185Q); Up and Down the Irraioaddi (1860) ; Epidemic Cholera (1866); Tlie Poetry of Compliment and Coiirtship (1867); The Beauties and Curiosities of Engraving (1879) ; A Portfolio of Autograph Etchings (1882); After His Kind, novel (1886); For Charlie's Sake, and Other Lyrics and Ballads (1901).

PALMER, Nathaniel Brown, discoverer, was born in Stonington, Conn., Aug. 8, 1799 ; son of Nathaniel (1768-1812) and Mercy (Brown) Pal- mer ; grandson of Nathaniel (1740-1818) and Grace (Noyes) Palmer, and of Peleg and Mercy (Denison) Brown, and a descendant in the seventh generation from Walter and Rebecca (Short) Palmer, who came from England to Stonington, Conn., in 1653, and in the sixth gen- eration from the Rev. Chad Brown (q.v.). He was also a direct descendant through Mercy Denison, of John Howland of the Mayflower, and through Dorothy Noyes, of Governor Peleg Sanford. His father was a lawyer and afterward a shii^builder. The son went to sea in 1813 ; was second mate of the brig Herselia, Capt. J. P. Sheffield, in 1818, and returned from the south seas to Stonington with 10,000 seal skins. He was made captain of the sloop Hero in 1819, and in company with the Herselia made a second voyage to the south seas where he discovered Palmer's land in latitude 67' longitude 70'. He next commanded the James Monroe in an expedition under Capt. W. A. Fan- ning to the South Shetland Islands, and the Cadet in several voyages to Cartagena on the Spanish main, where he was employed hy the Colombian government in transporting a portion of General Bolivar's army from Cartagena to the river Cha- gres and prisoners to Santiago de Cuba. In 1826 he took the brig Tampico to Cartagena. He was married Dec. 7, 1826, to Eliza Thompson, daugh- ter of Paul Babcock, she died in 1872, having had no children. He took the brig Francis to the south seas in 1827, and the Anawan on a voj- age of discovery in 1829, east of Cajie Horn. On his next voyage he touclied at Juan Fernan-