General Joel Palmer (October 4, 1810 – June 9, 1881) was an

American pioneer American pioneers, also known as American settlers, were European American,Asian American, and African American settlers who migrated westward from the British Thirteen Colonies and later the United States of America to settle and develop areas ...

of the

Oregon Territory The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the United States, Union as the Oreg ...

in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

region of North America. He was born in Upper Canada, and spent his early years in New York and

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

before serving as a member of the

Indiana House of Representatives The Indiana House of Representatives is the lower house of the Indiana General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Indiana. The House is composed of 100 members representing an equal number of constituent districts. House mem ...

. Palmer traveled to the

Oregon Country Oregon Country was a large region of the Pacific Northwest of North America that was subject to a long Oregon boundary dispute, dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States in the early 19th century. The area, which had been demarcat ...

in 1845. He played a central role in blazing the last leg of the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what ...

, the Barlow Road, with Sam Barlow and others. Specifically, Palmer is noted for having climbed high on

Mount Hood Mount Hood, also known as Wy'east, is an active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range and is a member of the Cascade Volcanic Arc. It was formed by a subduction zone on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast and rests in the Pacific N ...

to observe the surrounding area when the party ran into difficulty. He wrote a popular

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

guidebook, co-founded Dayton, Oregon, and served as a controversial Indian Affairs administrator. After

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

became a state, Palmer served in both branches of the

Oregon Legislative Assembly The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the State legislature (United States), state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper house, upper and lower chamber: the Oregon State Senate, Sena ...

. He was selected as Speaker of the

Oregon House of Representatives The Oregon House of Representatives is the lower house of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, the upper house being the Oregon State Senate. There are 60 members of the House, representing 60 districts across the state, each with a population of ...

for one session in 1862, and in 1870 lost a bid to become

Governor of Oregon The governor of Oregon is the head of government of Oregon and serves as the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The title of governor was also applied to the office of Oregon's chief executive during the provisional and U.S. ter ...

. The

Palmer House Palmer House may refer to: In the United Kingdom * Palmer House, Great Torrington, an 18th-century house in Devon In the United States Items in this section are alphabetized by state, then city. * Palmer House (Blackton, Arkansas), listed on th ...

, his former home in Dayton, was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1987.

Early life

Joel Palmer was born in Elizabethtown,

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada, on October 4, 1810.Corning, Howard M. (1989) ''Dictionary of Oregon History''. Binfords & Mort Publishing. p. 191. His parents, Hannah Phelps and Ephraim Palmer, were American

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

s. When he was two years old, they moved to New York's

Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined a ...

in response to the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

. He received only three months of formal education in elementary school. In 1822, when Palmer was 12, his parents

indentured An indenture is a legal contract that reflects an agreement between two parties. Although the term is most familiarly used to refer to a labor contract between an employer and a laborer with an indentured servant status, historically indentures we ...

him to the Haworth family for a period of four years.Smith, Rose M. (2004)
Guide to the Joel Palmer papers 1851–1879.
University of Oregon Libraries. Retrieved on February 17, 2008. When he gained his freedom, he moved to

Bucks County, Pennsylvania Bucks County is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the List of counties in Pennsylvania, four ...

, to work on canals and bridges. He was married to Catherine Coffee from 1830 until her death after childbirth. On October 8, 1832, Palmer became a United States citizen.Lilly Library Manuscript Collections: Palmer MSS.
Indiana University. Retrieved on February 17, 2008. Palmer married his second wife, Sarah Ann Derbyshire, in 1836, and bought land near Laurel, Indiana, in the Whitewater Valley, where he supervised a construction project for a canal. In 1843, he was elected as a Democrat to the

for a one-year term. Representing Franklin County, he was re-elected to the legislature in 1844.

Oregon pioneer

In the spring of 1845, Palmer traveled to Oregon without his family, as captain of a

wagon train ''Wagon Train'' is an American Western television series that aired for eight seasons, first on the NBC television network (1957–1962) and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and reached the top of the ...

of 23 wagons. Stephen Meek served as the train's paid guide. Meek left the group at

Fort Hall Fort Hall was a fort in the Western United States that was built in 1834 as a fur trading post by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. It was located on the Snake River in the eastern Oregon Country, now part of present-day Bannock County in southeastern ...

to lead some of the members on the Meek Cutoff. The remaining parts of the wagon train reached the end of the overland

at the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

, and unwilling to wait for transport down the dangerous Cascade Rapids, Palmer's party joined Sam Barlow's party in a quest for passage through the

Cascade Range The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington (state), Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as m ...

around the south side of

. Palmer climbed to the 9,000-foot level of Mount Hood on October 7, 1845—with little food and the scant protection of

moccasins A moccasin is a shoe, made of deerskin or other soft leather, consisting of a sole (made with leather that has not been "worked") and sides made of one piece of leather, stitched together at the top, and sometimes with a vamp (additional pane ...

—to scout a route off the mountains. This was Mount Hood's first recorded climb; 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. Sam Barlow later returned with partner Philip Foster to establish the Mount Hood Toll Road, which became known as the Barlow Road. In 1846, Palmer returned to his family in Indiana and in 1847 he published his diary as ''Palmer's Journal of Travels Over the Rocky Mountains, 1845–1846''. Joel Palmer
''Palmer's Journal of Travels Over the Rocky Mountains, 1845–1846''
(1847),

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

catalog F592 .T54 vol. 30. (viewable online) 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 The Willamette Valley ( ) is a valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, the ...

, and included a copy of the

Organic Laws of Oregon The Organic Laws of Oregon were two sets of legislation passed in the 1840s by a group of primarily American settlers based in the Willamette Valley. These laws were drafted after the Champoeg Meetings and created the structure of a government in ...

adopted by settlers at the

Champoeg Meetings The Champoeg Meetings were the first attempts at formal governance by European-American and French Canadian pioneers in the Oregon Country on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. Between 1841 and 1843, a series of public councils was he ...

. It was a popular guidebook for immigrants for the next ten years. 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. At the outset of the war he was appointed as commissary-general of the Provisional Government's militia forces. After the war, in 1848, Palmer joined the

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

but returned in 1849 to co-found Dayton, Oregon on the lower

Yamhill River The Yamhill River is an tributary of the Willamette River, in the U.S. state of Oregon. Formed by the confluence of the South Yamhill River and the North Yamhill River about east of McMinnville, it drains part of the Northern Oregon Coast R ...

where he built a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

on his donation land claim.

Oregon politician

In 1853, President

Franklin Pierce Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. A northern Democratic Party (United States), Democrat who believed that the Abolitionism in the United States, abolitio ...

appointed Palmer Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the

. The debate of what to do with Native Americans ranged from full integration to total extermination. Palmer proved effective negotiating "Cessation of Hostility treaties" with the native tribes in 1854 and 1855, brokering nine of fifteen treaties. He joined

Isaac Stevens Isaac Ingalls Stevens (March 25, 1818 – September 1, 1862) was an American military officer and politician who served as governor of the Territory of Washington from 1853 to 1857, and later as its delegate to the United States House of Represe ...

, his counterpart for the

Washington Territory The Washington Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

, in the successful Walla Walla Treaty Council of the Yakima Indian War. Approximately 5,000 Indians attended deliberations from May 29, 1855, to June 11, 1855. Palmer gained an anti-settler reputation among immigrants, newspapers and officials, who said he acted too favorably toward the Indians, even though he moved the tribes to reservations outside the

, seeking to avoid friction between settlers and natives by physical distance. In late 1855, while moving the Rogue River tribes to the Grand Ronde Reservation, violent resistance was threatened by settlers who felt the land should not be given to the tribes. Palmer succeeded, but the territorial legislature petitioned for his removal from office, which became effective in 1857. After leaving office as Indian Affairs Superintendent, Palmer worked his farm on his land claim and operated his sawmill and several other enterprises. Between 1858 and 1861 he spent time in

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

as a merchant to prospectors in the gold rushes of the

Thompson River The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches, the South Thompson River and the North Thompson River. The river ...

, Similkameen Valley, and

Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

. Palmer blazed a route to the gold fields of the Okanogan Valley and the upper portions of the Columbia River from Priest Rapids in 1860. In 1862, he was elected to the

to represent Yamhill County.Oregon Legislative Assembly (2nd) 1862 Regular Session.
Oregon State Archives. Retrieved on February 17, 2008. Now a member of the Republican Party, he was named Speaker of the House during that session. That year Palmer also established the Columbia River Road Company to build a trail through the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon side of the river. In 1864, Palmer was elected to the

State Senate In the United States, the state legislature is the legislative branch in each of the 50 U.S. states. A legislature generally performs state duties for a state in the same way that the United States Congress performs national duties at ...

and served in that chamber through 1866. This included the 1865 special session of the legislature when Oregon adopted the

Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished Slavery in the United States, slavery and involuntary servitude, except Penal labor in the United States, as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed ...

that abolished slavery throughout the United States. He ran for

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

in the 1870 election as the Republican candidate, but was narrowly defeated by La Fayette Grover, largely for his Indian policies.

Treaties negotiated by Palmer

* Treaty with the Rogue River, 1853 * Treaty with the Umpqua–Cow Creek Band, 1853 * Treaty with the Rogue River, 1854 * Treaty with the Chasta, etc., 1854 * Treaty with the Umpqua and Kalapuya, 1854 * Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc., 1855 * Treaty with the Wallawalla, Cayuse, etc., 1855 *

Treaty with the Middle Tribes of Oregon A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

, 1855 * Treaty with the Molala, 1855

Later years and legacy

Palmer's brother, named Ephraim like their father, also immigrated to Oregon and served as a captain in the first regiment of the Oregon Infantry. In 1871, Palmer was the state's

Indian agent In United States history, an Indian agent was an individual authorized to interact with American Indian tribes on behalf of the U.S. government. Agents established in Nonintercourse Act of 1793 The federal regulation of Indian affairs in the Un ...

to the Siletz tribe, remaining in the office until 1873. All eight of Palmer's children completed higher education. Joel Palmer died in Dayton on June 9, 1881, at the age of 70. His former home that he built in 1852,

, was added to the

in 1987, and is now operating as a restaurant. 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 The Oregon State Capitol is the building housing the Oregon Legislative Assembly, state legislature and the offices of the Governor of Oregon, governor, Oregon Secretary of State, secretary of state, and Oregon State Treasurer, treasurer of t ...

, with his located in the Senate chamber. During World War II the

liberty ship Liberty ships were a ship class, class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Although British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost cons ...

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''.

References

External links

* *
Context for Treaty Making: Joel Palmer''Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, to the Mouth of the Columbia River'' at Gutenberg.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palmer, Joel 1810 births 1881 deaths Cayuse War Indiana Democrats Members of the Indiana House of Representatives People from Oregon Country People from Oregon Territory Oregon Republicans Oregon state senators Oregon superintendents for Indian affairs People from Dayton, Oregon Emigrants from pre-Confederation Ontario to the United States Speakers of the Oregon House of Representatives 19th-century members of the Indiana General Assembly