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

American pioneer American pioneers were European American and African American settlers who migrated westward from the Thirteen Colonies and later United States to settle in and develop areas of North America that had previously been inhabited or used by Nati ...

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 Union as the State of Oregon. O ...

in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as 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. Thou ...

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

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

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 me ...

. 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 dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States in the early 19th century. The area, which had been created by the Treaty of 1818, co ...

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 emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...

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

Mount Hood Mount Hood is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. It was formed by a subduction zone on the Pacific coast and rests in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located about east-southeast of Portl ...

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 natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

guidebook, co-founded

Dayton, Oregon Dayton is a city in Yamhill County, Oregon, United States. The population was 2,534 at the 2010 census. History The city was founded in 1850 by Andrew Smith and Joel Palmer. Palmer, who also served as superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon ...

, and served as a controversial

Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and Al ...

administrator. After

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

became a state, Palmer served in both branches of the

Oregon Legislative Assembly The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper and lower house: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the ...

. 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. There are 60 members of the House, representing 60 districts across the state, each with a population of 65,000. The House meets in the west wing of th ...

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 The Palmer House – A Hilton Hotel is a historic hotel in Chicago's Loop area. It is a member of the Historic Hotels of America program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Palmer House was the city's first hotel with elevator ...

, his former home in Dayton, was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1987.

Early life

Joel Palmer was born in Elizabethtown,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, 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 a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

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 of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas cl ...

in response to the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It be ...

. 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.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 in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the fourth-most populous county in Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Doylestown. The county is named after the English ...

, 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 series that aired 8 seasons: first on the NBC television network (1957–1962), and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and became number one in the Nielsen ratings ...

of 23 wagons.

Stephen Meek Stephen Hall L. Meek (July 4, 1807 – January 8, 1889) was a fur trapper and guide in the American west, most notably a guide on a large wagon train that used a trail known as the Meek Cutoff. A native of Virginia, both he and his younger brot ...

served as the train's paid guide. Meek left the group at Fort Hall to lead some of the members on the

Meek Cutoff Meek Cutoff was a horse trail road that branched off the Oregon Trail in northeastern Oregon and was used as an alternate emigrant route to the Willamette Valley in the mid-19th century. The road was named for frontiersman Stephen Meek, who wa ...

. The remaining parts of the wagon train reached the end of the overland

at the

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

, and unwilling to wait for transport down the dangerous

Cascade Rapids The Cascades Rapids (sometimes called Cascade Falls or Cascades of the Columbia) were an area of rapids along North America's Columbia River, between the U.S. states of Washington (state), Washington and Oregon. Through a stretch approximately ...

, 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 and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...

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 panel o ...

—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 ) , image_skyline = McLoughlin House.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = The McLoughlin House, est. 1845 , image_flag = , image_seal = Oregon City seal.png , image_map ...

, while Barlow and Rector blazed a trail to Oregon City on foot. Sam Barlow later returned with partner

Philip Foster Philip Foster (January 29, 1805 – March 17, 1884) was one of the first settlers in Oregon, United States. The farmstead he established in Eagle Creek in 1847 became a stopping post for pioneers heading west along the Oregon Trail. Approximatel ...

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 the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

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 long 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 eas ...

, 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. 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 Whitman massacre (also known as the Walla Walla massacre and referred to as the Tragedy at Waiilatpu by the National Park Service) was the killing of the Washington missionaries Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa, along with eleven others ...

—the event that precipitated the

Cayuse War The Cayuse War was an armed conflict that took place in the Northwestern United States from 1847 to 1855 between the Cayuse people of the region and the United States Government and local American settlers. Caused in part by the influx of disease ...

. 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) was a gold rush that 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 f ...

but returned in 1849 to co-found

on the lower Yamhill River 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 The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, sometimes known as the Donation Land Act, was a statute enacted by the United States Congress in late 1850, intended to promote homestead settlements in the Oregon Territory. It followed the Distribution-Pr ...

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. He was a northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation's unity ...

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 Represen ...

, his counterpart for the

Washington Territory The Territory of Washington 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 The Grand Ronde Community is an Indian reservation located on several non-contiguous sections of land in southwestern Yamhill County and northwestern Polk County, Oregon, United States, about east of Lincoln City, near the community of Grand ...

, 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 (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

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 ri ...

Similkameen Valley Similkameen may refer to: * Similkameen Country or Similkameen District, or "the Similkameen", a historical georegion in British Columbia, Canada * Similkameen River, a river that runs through southern British Columbia, discharging into the Okanog ...

, and

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

. 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 Yamhill County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 107,722. The county seat is McMinnville. Yamhill County was named after the Yamhelas, members of the Kalapuya Tribe. Yamhill C ...

.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 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 and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representative ...

that abolished slavery throughout the United States. He ran for

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

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. A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal per ...

, 1854 *

Treaty with the Umpqua and Kalapuya The Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc., also known as the Kalapuya Treaty or the Treaty of Dayton, was an 1855 treaty between the United States and the bands of the Kalapuya tribe, the Molala tribe, the Clackamas, and several others in the Oregon ...

, 1854 *

Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc. The Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc., also known as the Kalapuya Treaty or the Treaty of Dayton, was an 1855 treaty between the United States and the bands of the Kalapuya tribe, the Molala tribe, the Clackamas, and several others in the Oregon T ...

, 1855 * Treaty with the Wallawalla, Cayuse, etc., 1855 * Treaty with the Middle Tribes of Oregon, 1855 *

Treaty with the Molala A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal per ...

, 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 government. Background The federal regulation of Indian affairs in the United States first included development of t ...

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 the ...

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

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

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 19th-century American politicians Cayuse War Indiana Democrats Members of the Indiana House of Representatives Oregon Country Oregon pioneers Oregon Republicans Oregon state senators Oregon Superintendents for Indian Affairs People from Dayton, Oregon Pre-Confederation Canadian emigrants to the United States Speakers of the Oregon House of Representatives