27 Facts About Joel Palmer

General Joel Palmer was an American pioneer of the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest region of North America.

Joel Palmer was born in Canada, and spent his early years in New York and Pennsylvania before serving as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives.

Joel Palmer 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.

Joel Palmer wrote a popular immigrant guidebook, co-founded Dayton, Oregon, and served as a controversial Indian Affairs administrator.

Joel Palmer 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.

Joel Palmer was born in Elizabethtown, Ontario, Canada, on October 4,1810.

Joel Palmer received only three months of formal education in elementary school.

In 1822, when Joel Palmer was 12, his parents indentured him to the Haworth family for a period of four years.

Joel Palmer was married to Catherine Coffee from 1830 until her death after childbirth.

On October 8,1832, Joel Palmer became a United States citizen.

Joel 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.

The remaining parts of the wagon train reached the end of the overland Oregon Trail at the Columbia River, and unwilling to wait for transport down the dangerous Cascade Rapids, Joel Palmer's party joined Sam Barlow's party in a quest for passage through the Cascade Range around the south side of Mount Hood.

Joel Palmer left on horseback for Oregon City, while Barlow and Rector blazed a trail to Oregon City on foot.

Also in 1847, Joel Palmer traveled with his family to Oregon as captain of that year's major wagon train.

Joel Palmer proved effective negotiating "Cessation of Hostility treaties" with the native tribes in 1854 and 1855, brokering nine of fifteen treaties.

Joel Palmer joined Isaac Stevens, his counterpart for the Washington Territory, in the successful Walla Walla Treaty Council of the Yakima Indian War.

Joel 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 Willamette Valley, seeking to avoid friction between settlers and natives by physical distance.

Joel Palmer succeeded, but the territorial legislature petitioned for his removal from office, which became effective in 1857.

Joel 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.

That year Joel Palmer established the Columbia River Road Company to build a trail through the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon side of the river.

In 1864, Joel Palmer was elected to the State Senate and served in that chamber through 1866.

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

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

In 1871, Joel Palmer was the state's Indian agent to the Siletz tribe, remaining in the office until 1873.

Joel Palmer died in Dayton on June 9,1881, at the age of 70.

Joel 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.