Legends, Labors & Loves: William Jackson Palmer, 1836—1909

By Pikes Peak Library District

Everyone in Colorado Springs knows General William Jackson Palmer—ask any child and they’ll tell you “he’s the man on the horse!” Ask an adult and they may add that city streets, a park and a school are named after him. But who was he? Perhaps more knowledgeable citizens would tell you, “General Palmer was the founder of Colorado Springs,” or “He was the president of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad,” and others would declare, “He was a decorated Union soldier.” “Who was he?,” or “who was she,” is frequently answered by recounting the individual’s accomplishments in life. Some people have long résumés listing their incredible successes. Others are well known for their failures. There are some residents of the Pikes Peak Region who know William Jackson Palmer as a husband to Queen Mellen Palmer; a father to Elsie, Dorothy and Marjory; and a friend to everyone in the community. Still others would tell you that he was an environmentalist, a pacifist, and an entrepreneur. The second annual Pikes Peak Regional History Symposium, William Jackson Palmer, 1836-1909: Legends, Labors & Loves, endeavored to answer the question, “Who was William Jackson Palmer?” The day-long symposium on June 4, 2005, compared the man of myth with his life’s undertakings, as well as with what is known about his personal relationships. More complex questions come about when reconciling Palmer as a Union army soldier and spy with his Quaker upbringing; reconciling the massive manpower required to build Palmer’s western railroad and mining empires with his reputation as man of benevolence; and reconciling Palmer’s love for Colorado Springs with his intercontinental romance with his wife Mary Lincoln Mellen “Queen” Palmer. This “Palmer Paradox” intrigued Chris Nicholl, historian in Special Collections at Pikes Peak Library District, who cochairs the Symposium Planning Committee with Calvin P. Otto. Chris and Cal assembled many research talents of the region to attempt to reveal this man of Glen Eyrie.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pikes Peak Library District
• Release date: Nov 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781567353310

Book preview

Legends, Labors & Loves

William Jackson Palmer

1836—1909

Edited by

Tim Blevins, Dennis Daily, Chris Nicholl,

Calvin P. Otto & Katherine Scott Sturdevant

Published by

with the

&

Legends, Labors & Loves: William Jackson Palmer, 1836—1909

Copyright 2009 Pikes Peak Library District.

All rights reserved. Smashwords edition.

This publication was made possible by private funds.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Legends, labors and loves: William Jackson Palmer, 1836—1909 / edited by Tim Blevins, Dennis Daily, Chris Nicholl, Calvin P. Otto and Katherine Scott Sturdevant.—

1st ed.

p. cm. (Regional history series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Smashwords e-book ISBN 978-1-56735-331-0

paperback ISBN 978-1-56735-261-0

LCCN 2009922142

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad: An Address Given to the Employees, January 28, 1920, by William A. Bell, previously appeared as a monograph titled, Address by Dr. William A. Bell at a Dinner Given to the Employees of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad at the Union Station, privately published, 1920, [Denver, Colo.].

Westward March Of Emigration In The United States, Considered In Its Bearing Upon The Near Future Colorado And New Mexico, by William Jackson Palmer, previously appeared as a monograph of the same title, published by Inquirer Print. and Pub. Co., 1874, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

General William J. Palmer, Anti-Imperialist, 1895-1905, by George L. Anderson, previously appeared in Colorado Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 1, published by the Colorado Historical Society, http://coloradohistory.org.

General William J. Palmer and the Early Denver & Rio Grande Railway: An Annotated Select Bibliography, by Victor J. Stone, previously appeared in The Prospector, Vol. 2, No. 3, published by the Rio Grande Modeling & Historical Society, http://drgw.org.

Tributes to the Late William J. Palmer From His Fellow Citizens In Colorado Springs, edited by Mary G. Slocum, previously appeared in General Series No. 44, Social Science Series, Vol. 2, No. 2, published by Colorado College,

http://coloradocollege.edu.

1. Palmer, William Jackson, 1836-1909. 2. Railroads--United States--Employees--Biography. 3. Colorado Springs (Colo.)--History. 4. Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Company. 5. United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives. 6. Glen Eyrie (Colo.) I. Blevins, Tim II. Daily, Dennis III. Nicholl, Chris IV. Series.

CT275 .P35 L4 2009

978.856‘03’092—dc22

About Pikes Peak Library District

Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) is a nationally recognized system of public libraries serving a population of more than 530,000 in El Paso County, Colorado. With twelve facilities, online resources, and mobile library service, PPLD responds to the unique needs of individual neighborhoods and the community at large. PPLD has an employee base of 425 full and part-time staff, and utilizes roughly 1,400 volunteers. It strives to reach all members of the community, providing free and equitable access to information and an avenue for personal and community enrichment. PPLD is rated ninth in the country among library systems serving populations greater than 500,000. Volume of circulations, number of visits, and hours of access contribute to the ranking. PPLD is also recognized for its commitment to diversity, its quality programming, and its excellent customer service.

Board of Trustees 2009

Robert Hilbert, President

John Wilson, Vice President

Calvin P. Otto, Secretary/Treasurer

Jill Gaebler

Kathleen Owings

Katherine Spicer

Lynne Telford

Executive Director

Paula J. Miller

Regional History Series

Currently In Print

The Colorado Labor Wars: Cripple Creek 1903–1904

"To Spare No Pains": Zebulon Montgomery Pike & His 1806–1807 Southwest Expedition

Doctor at Timberline: True Tales, Travails, & Triumphs of a Pioneer Colorado Physician

Forthcoming

Extraordinary Women of the Rocky Mountain West

Regional History Series

Editorial Committee

Tim Blevins

Dennis Daily

Chris Nicholl

Calvin P. Otto

Principal Series Consultant

Calvin P. Otto

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Acknowledgements

About Pikes Peak Library District

Introduction: Our Father Who Art in the Intersection, Or, Where Does William Jackson Palmer Belong?

Young Palmer Travels Abroad

A Question of Conscience: William Jackson Palme and His Quaker Faith

One of the Most Gallant Men of the Army: William Jackson Palmer and the Medal of Honor

An Abiding Bond: The Friendship Between Major Henry McAllister and General William Jackson Palmer

My Darling Queenie . . . A Love Story

General William Jackson Palmer and the Mellen and Clarke Families

The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad: An Address Given to the Employees, January 28, 1920

Connections West: William Jackson Palmer and His Railroad Routing Rivalries

The Westward March of Emigration in the United States, Considered in its Bearing Upon the Near Future of Colorado and New Mexico

General William Jackson Palmer and His Vision for Colorado Springs

Letter to the Citizens of Colorado Springs of the Twenty First Century

William Jackson Palmer: Park Builder

The Gardens of Glen Eyrie

General William J. Palmer, Anti-Imperialist, 1895-1905

William Jackson Palmer: Living While Dying

General William Jackson Palmer’s Riding Accident, Palliative Care and Death, 1906 to 1909

Tributes to the Late William J. Palmer From His Fellow Citizens In Colorado Springs

Last Will and Testament

Can You Not Give Up Some?: A Puppet Presentation

General William J. Palmer and the Early Denver and Rio Grande Railway: A Selected Annotated Bibliography

Acknowledgments

The Editorial Committee extends its grateful appreciation to the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum and to Colorado College for participating in this publication and for providing photographs and text to complete this book. Our thanks go to Museum Director Matt Mayberry and the knowledgeable, and always helpful Museum staff, and to Colorado College Special Collections Librarian Jessy Randall for her obliging and enthusiastic assistance. Thank you to Victor J. Stone, who not only provided an excellent annotated bibliography, but also kindly shared many unique images from his collection. We have a special thank you for Kathy Sturdevant, who co-edited this book and generously offered her time and her matchless writing and history expertise. As ever before, we extend limitless gratitude to the entire staff of Pikes Peak Library District Special Collections, and to the many others at PPLD who assist with these publications and the annual Pikes Peak Regional History Symposium. We wish to acknowledge the wonderful assistance provided by previous PPLD employees Steve Antonuccio, Rosemary Davis and Nancy Thaler. We also thank the Colorado Historical Society and the Rio Grande Modeling & Historical Society for allowing us to include articles previously printed in their publications. We are all also grateful to Rhoda Davis Wilcox, author of The Man on the Iron Horse. Her noteworthy book, commemorating Palmer’s legacy, was published fifty years ago and is still in print today. We thank Mary Ellen White for her assistance in preparing this book for e-book formats. And finally, we recognize the writers of the chapters of this book. Their passion for research and willingness to contribute their efforts to Legends, Labors & Loves is a wonderful tribute to the memory of William Jackson Palmer.

The Editorial Committee

For purchasing information, contact:

Clausen Books

2131 North Weber Street

Colorado Springs, Colorado 80907

tel: [phone], toll free: (888)-412-7717

http://www.clausenbooks.com

FOREWORD

Everyone in Colorado Springs knows General William Jackson Palmer—ask any child and they’ll tell you he’s the man on the horse! Ask an adult and they may add that city streets, a park and a school are named after him. But who was he? Perhaps more knowledgeable citizens would tell you, General Palmer was the founder of Colorado Springs, or He was the president of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, and others would declare, He was a decorated Union soldier.

Who was he?, or who was she, is frequently answered by recounting the individual’s accomplishments in life. Some people have long résumés listing their incredible successes. Others are well known for their failures. There are some residents of the Pikes Peak Region who know William Jackson Palmer as a husband to Queen Mellen Palmer; a father to Elsie, Dorothy and Marjory; and a friend to everyone in the community. Still others would tell you that he was an environmentalist, a pacifist, and an entrepreneur.

The second annual Pikes Peak Regional History Symposium, William Jackson Palmer, 1836-1909: Legends, Labors & Loves, endeavored to answer the question, Who was William Jackson Palmer? The day-long symposium on June 4, 2005, compared the man of myth with his life’s undertakings, as well as with what is known about his personal relationships. More complex questions come about when reconciling Palmer as a Union army soldier and spy with his Quaker upbringing; reconciling the massive manpower required to build Palmer’s western railroad and mining empires with his reputation as man of benevolence; and reconciling Palmer’s love for Colorado Springs with his intercontinental romance with his wife Mary Lincoln Mellen Queen Palmer.

This Palmer Paradox intrigued Chris Nicholl, historian in Special Collections at Pikes Peak Library District, who co-chairs the Symposium Planning Committee with Calvin P. Otto. Chris and Cal assembled many research talents of the region to attempt to reveal this man of Glen Eyrie. This book, Legends, Labors & Loves: William Jackson Palmer, 1836-1909, contains the keys to the many doors in Palmer’s own castle—his personal life. However, there still are rooms, private and concealed, which no one can ever enter.

This unauthorized biography of a truly remarkable and modest man will open every reader’s eyes to a new view of William Jackson Palmer. There is no scandal, nor is there deception. However, in these pages you will not only find integrity, leadership, and compassion, but you will also witness Palmer’s tenacious conviction, strength, and shrewdness—just how one imagines a true founding father.

Paula J. Miller, Executive Director, PPLD

Tim Blevins, Manager, Special Collections, PPLD

Half title page: William Jackson Palmer’s signature and image of his personal wax seal. Courtesy Calvin P. Otto.

Cover: Portraits of Mary Lincoln Queen Mellen Palmer and William Jackson Palmer. The background is from the wood engraving, On Line of D. & R. G. Railway. Marshall Pass, by Paul Frenzeny, that appears in Marvels of the New West: A Vivid Portrayal of the Stupendous Marvels in the Vast Wonderland West of the Missouri River (The Minerva Group, Inc., 1887) by William M. Thayer. From Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District.

William Jackson Palmer. From Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District.

Back to Contents

The memorial statue of General William Jackson Palmer on a horse was unveiled on September 2, 1929, in the intersection of Nevada and Platte avenues. Dr. William F. Slocum, president emeritus of Colorado College, gave the principal dedication address and the statue was presented to the city by Edmond C. van Diest. The bronze monument was commissioned at a cost of $32,000, with money raised through subscription by the General William Jackson Palmer Memorial Association, and was created by Nathan Potter and his associate Chester French. The bronze was cast at the foundry of the Gorham Manufacturing Company, one of the country’s leading makers of silver ware and bronze statuary. The name of Palmer’s horse in the statue is an often-asked question. A tale has evolved suggesting that the horse is Diablo, Palmer’s favorite horse, however news articles printed at the time of the statue’s creation and unveiling simply refer to it as an equestrian statue. The name Diablo appears in a May 17, 1964, Colorado Springs Free Press article, Diablo and the General here to stay, regarding the proposed moving of the statue. Photograph by Stewarts Commercial Photographers, © Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District.

Introduction

Our Father Who Art in the Intersection, Or, Where Does William Jackson Palmer Belong?

Katherine Scott Sturdevant

When men and women become history, if the historians don’t take great care, the men and women suffer from oversimplification, from over- or undervaluation, from misinterpretation, and from their neighbors’ old first impressions that no one ever bothered to correct. Historians need to work on that for William Jackson Palmer and Queen Palmer. We are here today, about one hundred thirty-five years later, to work on that.

Perhaps it helped my views of the Palmers to be a non-native of Colorado Springs. Although Colorado is part of my family history, I first moved here in 1985. I remember many of my first impressions of Colorado Springs. My mother in San Francisco said, You’ll love Colorado Springs. It’s such a pretty little town. She had last visited it when she was 5 years old, in 1922. My husband had dreamt of living in the pleasant, quiet, small city. He had last lived here in 1970, stationed at Fort Carson. Needless to say, one of my first impressions was that Colorado Springs must have hit a few growth spurts.

As I investigated the local historical community—colleges, museums, libraries, and sites—I gained another set of first impressions. This town seemed gone on its founder, General William Jackson Palmer. Even as a Western historian, I had never heard of the man. (Many historians have never heard of him.) Yet his name and likeness seemed to confront me, literally at every turn, the city of Colorado Springs paying homage to one man for its very existence. There were popular books lauding him but no recent, scholarly works to guide me. I remember thinking this was an excellent example of historical inflation; by definition, one man alone cannot found a community, can he?

There is a lovely breed of volunteers, donors, and docents—The Friends of . . . (you fill in your favorite institution). We all know them. To know them is to love them. Some of us are them. In the 1980s, some of them gave me another memorable first impression. They all admired Palmer, but they did not like his wife. I could see it on their faces and hear it in their tones. What was wrong with her? I wondered. They portrayed her as pretty, so were they just jealous? Or could no woman be good enough for our founder? She was a spoiled little rich girl, they told me. She did not think Colorado Springs was good enough for her. He even built her a castle of her own and she would not live in it, they said.

My colleagues and students will tell you that, as a historian, I like to find my own twist on a topic. The ones who know me best might even tell you I am twisted. A twisted historian can get away with having great fun, especially if she looks and sounds innocent, chooses her words carefully, and smiles sweetly. Now I knew the man, Palmer, could not be all good and the woman, Queen, could not be all bad. So, first, as a college and Elderhostel teacher and tour guide, I had to take on the excessive reverence for the man.

I told my museum tour groups that they must genuflect before his larger-than-life portrait—and the museum director said he had a pillow just for that. On bus tours I announced into the microphone, And now the driver will block traffic by parking next to this statue so you can all get out and salute the General. I christened General Palmer, Our Father Who Art in the Intersection, Hallowed be Thy Name, with a curtsy, to group after group. Everyone trusted the research and teaching I was doing, so humor or lighter ways of interpreting history were acceptable because we were on solid historical ground. Everyone laughed. No one was offended, least of all the General who, after all, along with his iron stallion, had suffered many indignities over the years.

My irreverence made inroads on the community. I caught docents, Friends of, students, and other teachers calling him Our Father Who Art in the Intersection. Ah, the subversive power of teaching! But time and growth can also subvert. Eventually, the new people of Colorado Springs lost their reverence, along with their historical memory, and complained, plotted, and came close to, horror of historical horrors, moving General Palmer’s statue! I found myself in many conversations, defending the statue’s status quo because the desire to move him seemed to come, at least sometimes, from historical ignorance. In urban-renewed downtown Colorado Springs, the statue had somehow hung on.

Where does he belong? Our arguments about whether and where to move General Palmer’s statue serve as an allegory for a more significant historical question. Where does the historical subject of William Jackson Palmer belong, and why aren’t historians addressing that question? One of my fellow academic historians told me: I thought of proposing a historiographical paper for the Pikes Peak Regional History Symposium on Palmer until I realized there is almost no historiography on him!

On that score, Palmer didn’t help much. He wrote no autobiography and discouraged his friends from writing biography about him. After his death, the family cooperated with John Fisher, who published A Builder of the West in 1939, and with local schoolteacher Rhoda Wilcox, who published The Man on the Iron Horse for young people in 1959. Western historian Robert Athearn wrote the history of Palmer’s railroad, Rebel of the Rockies, but even that goes back to 1962. One rare, recent scholarly treatment I’ve seen contains Palmer’s military experience. Edwin Fishel’s The Secret War for the Union, in 1998, focuses well on Palmer’s dangerous spy adventures. I am often surprised how few local folks know of Palmer’s role in this activity or this book.

Then there was Marshall Sprague. Modern-day boosters of Colorado Springs still point happily to his Newport in the Rockies (1961). It is something, after all, to have an accessible, entertaining, paperback, in-print, single-volume history of one’s community to market and recommend. Some city leaders recently initiated a project to gather and record Colorado Springs history from the last forty years and they called this a plan to update Marshall Sprague. He stands there, then, as the authority, for many people. Any academic historians who take on local or Colorado history must acknowledge that biographers, doctors, journalists, secretaries, and school teachers were writing it when the academic historians were not yet paying attention.

So as an incoming local historian, I learned to honor the outgoing ones. Each of them becomes a colorful character in the story of Colorado Springs. I remember Helen Jackson (the grandniece of Helen Hunt Jackson) riding her bicycle. And speaking of colorful characters, I will never forget one of my first speaking engagements at the Pioneers Museum. The Friends of invited me without publicity so we had that nightmare: what would you do if you held a lecture and nobody came? The Friends were graciously apologetic but we canceled on the spot. As I awkwardly wandered away through the building, I heard the strains of ghostly music from another era. It was elderly local author Gladys Bueler, who, seeing no reason to hang her head, sat at the museum piano and played songs the Palmers probably loved. Beautiful Dreamer echoed through the old courthouse as I crept out.

How would scholarly historians do Palmer differently? First, we would do as many of us have done, and delve into the primary documents. There are rich collections that, having tasted them, are beckoning me to return. Second, the scholarly historian would bring a broader context. Local, state, and regional history, and the lives of the individuals who populate that history, all operated within national trends and patterns. That relationship should always form a backdrop for telling the local story, or the local story is inaccurate and narrow. To reach the largest audience, and to flow into the mainstream of historical research so that others might use it, local history needs national history. Third, it also needs the conceptual framework and scope that comes with applying thematic approaches to history. How will Palmer look through the lenses of modern social, military, economic, business, labor, medical, community, and even women’s history?

When I questioned the Our-Father-Who-Art-in-the-Intersection syndrome—the blind, admiring faith that one man could single-handedly found a community—I knew it takes a village to be a village. But when I studied Palmer, I realized he was a better example than I had ever seen of a man who carried out his dreams, and the communities he later founded were, initially, his sole idea. Those dreams and practices made Palmer a man of his times and as good an example of a Gilded Age industrialist as Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould or Pullman.

He was the visionary railroad tycoon and real estate developer, plotting his own tracks, town sites, fuel sources, and factories; the self-avowed capitalist using vertical integration; the non-attending Quaker, directing his reform spirit into secular actions; the paternalistic social engineer creating company towns and assuming his workers would be happy; the town booster luring tourists and health seekers with extravagant rhetoric and dubious promises; the enthusiastic sponsor of institutions, such as Colorado College, enhancing his town’s ambiance; the railroad king defending his turf with hired guns; the moralist dictating temperance habits; the Anglophile imitating British style; and the philanthropist leaving long legacies.

Our Pikes Peak Regional History Symposium, and this book, are two ways to chip away at the question of where Palmer belongs. We will learn from Mark Gardner how Palmer’s remarkable military career placed him among the Civil War heroes of Union. Lynn Gilfillan-Morton will help us realize that his wealth and taste for innovation led him to be even a pioneer patient as a quadriplegic. Matt Mayberry and Judith Rice-Jones will analyze how he modeled towns and parks after successes in Europe and the East. Barbara Gately and Mel McFarland will trace his camaraderie and conflicts through business partners. Delores Gustafson will reveal his paternalism through adopting his wife’s extended family. By means of the puppetry of Stephen Collins and company, we will sensitize ourselves to the private lives of a man and a woman, finding that, yes, the story of William Jackson Palmer even has a place in women’s history. And we will find romance, humor, and poignancy in Palmer’s story, because they can come to light naturally, when we return to the primary documents, and take only those liberties that we can all recognize as such.

Palmer in women’s history? Queen, that supposedly selfish bride, was one of my first local recovery efforts. Others of us, such as Celeste Black in her book Queen of Glen Eyrie, have taken up this cause as well. Just study women in the West, which had become a popular topic for 1980s historians. There was nothing remarkable about a woman going west just because her husband wanted to; about her being afraid of frontier dangers and reluctant to leave family and civilization behind; about her choosing to go back east if she had the means; about her realistically dreading ill health, childbirth, and early death; or about her pitching in and building community, church, school, and culture to make the best of her new home. Women’s history thus helps explain Queen in context, and her husband. Recently acquired documents also help make plain that Queen truly was ill and had medical advice to stay in England.

Speaking of women’s roles, I have a concluding story about where William Jackson Palmer belongs. One day at a history event I sat next to another teacher. She was an older lady whose name was familiar as the author of one of the reverent Palmer biographies. I was startled to find myself next to that name. This lady wanted to save General Palmer from being forgotten, and save his statue from being removed. She was becoming frail. As we spoke about local history, she speculated on who would carry her torch. On this occasion, though, when I agreed with her, that the statue should stay put, she turned to me and spoke earnestly: Someone needs to protect the General when they want to move him or tear him down. Will you do what I always thought I might do? When I’m gone, if they ever go to move it, will you chain yourself to the statue?

What did I say? What could I say? What would you say?

Well, let’s just say I have strong motives for keeping away the bulldozers. And the best way to do that, is to rediscover and reinterpret William Jackson Palmer, to escort him into the greater historical limelight that he deserves.

Now, let’s set to work on Our Father Who Art in the Intersection.

Katherine Scott Sturdevant is Professor of History at Pikes Peak Community College. Her teaching specializations include Western, women’s, environmental, ethnic, Colorado, and Pikes Peak regional history. She is a well-known local and national speaker, an expert oral history interviewer, the author of two books on the scholarly approach to family history, and has won local, state, and national awards for teaching excellence.

Helen Jackson, grandniece of Helen Hunt Jackson, riding her bicycle south on Nevada Avenue in-front of the statue of William Jackson Palmer. April 1965. Photograph by Myron Wood, © Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District.

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Daguerreotype of William Jackson Palmer, about 13 years old, with his parents, John and Matilda Jackson Palmer, Philadelphia., ca. 1849, photographer unknown. Item 106 from the William J. Palmer Family Photograph Collection, PP88-42, Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Young Palmer Travels Abroad

Joyce B. Lohse

Ship life is . . . remembered as a little period of fun and danger and novelty to be recalled in the future as an experience of things which are happening every day yet unknown to those who stay at home.¹

William Jackson Palmer, 1855

In 1855, William Jackson Palmer, a teenager not yet 19 years old, undertook a journey across the ocean to Europe. He had finished his basic schooling in Philadelphia and joined the engineering corps of the Hempfield Railroad, to do fieldwork in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. As an apprentice, his research would take him to Great Britain to survey and study mining methods there, which amplified his education and launched him headlong into adulthood and a lifelong career in railroading and engineering. This proved to be a pivotal period in Palmer’s development.

Paradoxically, the shy and reticent Palmer proved loquacious as a correspondent during his travels. In order to defray costs, or at least a portion of them, he sold accounts of his adventures to the Miner’s Journal in Pottsfield, Pennsylvania, for $4 per article.² Lengthy essays sent to his family and friends can be attributed to his mission as a journalist, his literary interests, and his penchant to document every detail of his findings and observations in writing.

Palmer was raised by parents who embraced the beliefs of the Hicksite Quaker religion, and the family was conservative, close-knit, and regimented. Born in 1836 on Kinsale Farm in Delaware, near the town of Leipsic in Kent County, William was 5 years old when his family moved to Germantown in Philadelphia. He attended Friends School and Zane Street School with his siblings, then Boys’ High School.³ Advanced higher education was not in his future.

During his travels in Great Britain, Palmer wrote multiple-page letters, packed edge to edge with carefully penned small script. Addressed Dear Parents, his letters home arrived at weekly intervals, often beginning with thee and thy in the Quaker tradition. His natural curiosity about the world around him provided ample material to share with his family.⁴

Palmer’s observations provided a glimpse into life at the time as he perceived it and into his own character as he revealed it. Although his candidness emerged in many instances, it was often overshadowed by a healthy dose of youthful arrogance. His views fluctuated from pretentious, with contrived wording and occasional French flourishes, to a sense of wonder with a tinge of shyness seeping through to the surface, preventing his tone from becoming excessively superior.

Overcoming hesitations as he approached the strange ship that would take him abroad, Palmer quickly developed an adventurous attitude and love of travel that would endure throughout his life. In a letter from Neath, South Wales, on October 28, 1855, he wrote of his voyage,

I shouldered my traps one rainy June morning and marched down to the Tuscarora, half afraid she was gone, half afraid of going in her. . . . The three weeks of ship life spent between Delaware Bay and the Mersey [a river near Liverpool, England] are only remembered as a little period of fun and danger and novelty to be recalled in the future as an experience of things which are happening every day yet unknown to those who stay at home.⁵

Young Palmer wasted no time adopting a gregarious attitude aboard the Tuscarora, a less-than-luxurious vessel that offered passage across the Atlantic Ocean at a cost of $48.⁶ He realized the advantages of this. It behooves passengers to lay aside all snobbishness and ‘gregularity’ and combine to make the tedious hours prove less tedious and the long long days of sailing, days of pleasure and not of ennui.⁷

The purpose of Palmer’s travels was twofold. Primarily, he was seeking the practical experience of a railroad apprenticeship in the areas of transportation and mining engineering. His uncle, Frank H. Jackson of the Westmoreland Coal Company, had suggested the trip.⁸ Palmer’s fact-finding mission helped him meet and develop important contacts and gather information, which would help him formulate foundations and theories applied later when building railroads, a lofty undertaking for a young man traveling abroad on his own.

Beyond that, the trip provided the opportunity for Palmer to test his mettle and to explore his boundaries as he came of age. Although his strong family ties provided a safety net, he built and developed his own support system and attributes of strong character during his travels. In a few short years, while serving the Union army in the Civil War, his newly bolstered confidence would come in handy.⁹ His experience also carried with it the weighty responsibility to help support his family once he returned home.

In addition to lengthy accounts in his letters, Palmer documented visits, observations, and encounters, good and bad, in the pages of bound journals. These contained detailed engineering notes with sketches of furnaces and bridges, and data tables. He indulged his literary passion as it pertained to mining in the front page of his 1855 journal with a poem transcribed for inspiration.

Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round

And while the low hissing urn

Throws up a steam column and the cups

That cheer but not inebriate, exist in each

To let us welcome peaceful evenings in Cowper

Beautiful! [Palmer exclaims]

Hurrah for those below

Who digging they the ground

Hurrah for thinking minds above

Who such a help have found

Hurrah man—Engine, come

Ye miners sing with me

Lift your voices like a triumph

Eternal strength to thee—by a Cornish miner

[Palmer wrote:] Good & not exaggerated¹⁰

Palmer’s journals were bursting with details and data regarding transportation, mining, and the processes of daily life in England. A trip to the bank resulted in notes about the number of guards and the salary scale in British pounds of bank employees. Perhaps, even at his tender age, he was visualizing towns and services, with their attendant needs and problems, to be constructed along future railroad routes.

When he rode the train, Palmer noted the number of wheels and drivers, the gauge of the road, the weight of the rails, the distance between sleeper cars, and the depth of the furnace. He studied the use of smokeless fuel, comparing anthracite to steam coal from South Wales. In a sample typical of his notes, he wrote,

Fires in London—more than 100 a month on average. Mortality in London 1000 a week. In cold weather 1600. Visited Meux Brewery, Oxford Street, Dec 28—Food cook patent applied to furnace perfectly satisfactory saving of ¼ coal per week. Cast iron bridges intact—still good as new. No smoke whatever.¹¹

Palmer visited a chemical production company to augment his background. He wrote,

The chief first looked astonished at my impudence in daring to enter the premises sacred to alum & sulpheric acid & then cordially went round with me himself through the furnaces. These were long boilers somewhat on the Cornish principle with fire in the mobil flu.¹²

Notes continue regarding the particulars of fuel attributes, consumption, and ventilation, knowledge he would later apply to his railroads and planning for new settlements.

With his future in mind, Palmer stated in a letter from Paris to his parents,

I am to be a mining not a civil engineer. When I return if I was to become an authority on ventilation, I might hang out a shingle somewhere up in the wilderness of Saint Anthony [Pennsylvania] with the following edifying information for foreign & indigenous population viz. Coal Mines ventilated—at so much per breath per person per annum. Wm. J. Palmer (lately of Europe) N.B. refreshments for travelers."¹³ [N.B. is the Latin imperative, Nota Bene, meaning to take notice or pay special attention to this.]

In those instances when letters of introduction were lacking, Palmer took the situation in stride. He wrote the following in his journal about a failed attempt to visit a soap maker in England.

Peyton & Roberts Soap, Wapping, Jan/55

Called & stated that I was an American & requested permission to inspect smoke consumer. Parkers—[type of equipment]

Have you got an introduction. No.

We shall expect to have an introduce before we can open our door to strangers. Else you let everyone come.

Ah—good morning.¹⁴

Palmer went on to describe his next visit, putting the rejection quickly behind him.

When Palmer entertained his family with lengthy essays, he often shared his evolving delight in British customs. Letters of introduction assisted with some of his lodging needs and led him to the household of Mr. Morgan in Wales.

The family consisting of his wife and her servant, Mr. Morgan and a temporary resident in the shape of a nephew about to enter in the army, with myself, rose about 8 in the morning. Cold meat, toast, eggs, tea and bread and butter were brought in by the servant about half past eight or nine, and Everyone sat down as he dropped in, without the slightest ceremony or fuss whatever, as each one entered the pleasant salle a manger warmed by a cheerful grate burning stone coal, the rest arose and shook hands with him bidding him Good Morning. This was a decidedly pleasant and cheerful social custom and ought to be introduced on the other side [of] the water, where we half the time carelessly interchange a good morning and as often as not forget or omit it altogether. After the shaking hands was got through with, the newcomer sat down along with the rest and the lady of the house helped him to a cup of tea. He then helped himself to a slice of cold meat or to an egg, took bread which the English very properly like dry and hard and sweet and not fresh and clammy and hot as we seem to do—and the processes of mastication and deglutilious and digestion go quietly on. This is all very nice and comfortable. The meal is very light, lasting perhaps 10 minutes, as each one finished, he leaned back in his chair or moved up to the fireplace with the Times or Cambrian and made himself as perfectly happy and contented as it is in the nature of such surroundings to allow.¹⁵

Palmer took sly pleasure in scrutinizing the wit and intellect of the other houseguest, the host’s nephew. Although they were of similar age, they apparently lacked common ground for friendship or lengthy discourse. At one point, Mr. Morgan apologized for his nephew’s lack of cultural literacy. Palmer overlooked this for the most part, but spent a fair amount of time curiously describing the Warlike nephew.

The Nevvy [nephew] a young fine looking fellow of 20 or 21, who has passed the Examination and is daily awaiting his Commission as Ensign to come down from the Horseguards, is spending a couple of weeks with his Uncle in order to acquire a knowledge of Surveying, somebody having told him that his prospects might be materially brightened in India if he were acquainted with this branch. The uncle sent over for a mineral Surveyor to come and teach him the art—and that worthy, deep in drink with the five shillings too much which the Uncle sent to pay his Expenses, arrived whilst I was there and proceeded to instill into the cranium of the officer-elect a knowledge of his craft. But the Nevvy not being grounded in Mathematics didn’t know an angle from a crooked stick or a meridian from a Merry Andrew or a base line from a base viol—and so I fear they made little progress.—As to myself, I usually spent the mornings (so called), in the mines with Mr. Morgan geologising or with the Surveying party as attaché.¹⁶

When Palmer’s letters became personal, he instructed his family,

But all this is very gossipy and the letter containing it must not be read out of our own immediate family.—there it can do no harm and will only give you a sample of the transactions be going on in a country gentlemans home which in England is truly his castle.¹⁷

Regarding Palmer’s exposure to vices, his tone became eloquently teasing, elusive and a bit sarcastic. Perhaps he was skirting the issue or boldly testing the boundaries with an ocean between himself and the straight-laced criticism of relatives.

[T]o return to the meal of the day. . . . The wine in two decanters, red and white was brought in at the very commencement and each one helped himself to whichever he preferred Sherry or Claret. Mrs. Morgan a refined and delicate lady generally taking one glass. Now I know what Aunt Jennette is going to exclaim, as well as if I were in the room at the time—Did thee touch any of it, William?—Ahem—does thee suppose, Aunt Jennette that a young man bred up