Henry Palmer was born on July 30, 1827, in New Hartford, New York, to Ephraim and Abigail Palmer. His father was a farmer who owned $5,000 of real estate by 1850. He grew up and attended school in New Hartford, and he worked as a teacher in the 1840s. Around 1849, he spent “six months in a cruise in the Arctic regions, touching at various points in Greenland and on Hudson Bay.” He graduated from Albany Medical College in 1854, and he settled in Janesville, Wisconsin, around 1856.

 

He married Edna Hoyt around 1851, and the couple had six children: Clara, Kittie, William, Estella, Eloise, and Elizabeth. He worked as a physician, and by 1860, he owned $2,000 of real estate and $5,000 of personal property. He also employed at least two white domestic servants.

 

In 1861, he received an appointment as a surgeon in the 7^th Wisconsin Infantry. He later became the surgeon of the York General Hospital in York, Pennsylvania. The army transferred him to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1864, and he remained there until June 1865. He helped oversee the closure of Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois, and he mustered out on October 7, 1865.

 

He returned to Janesville after the war and resumed his work as a physician. By 1870, he owned $9,000 of real estate and $15,000 of personal property. An early biographer noted that his “zeal, his energy and superior ability…placed him in the foremost rank in his profession and gave him a wide reputation.” He travelled to Europe in 1877 and reportedly “inspect[ed] the system of Russian hospitals” during the Russo-Turkish War.

 

He supported the Republican Party, and he served two terms as mayor of Janesville. He also served as president of the Merchants’ and Mechanics’ Savings Bank, and he became state surgeon general in 1880. He held the position until early 1891. He died in Janesville on June 15, 1895.

 

Image: Henry Palmer (courtesy Wikicommons)

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