Elliot Palmer was born around 1801 in Connecticut to Elliot and Anna Palmer. He married Florilla Sumner on December 26, 1831, and they had at least four children: William, born around 1834; George, born around 1838; Loomis, born around 1844; Francis, born around 1845. They lived in Stafford, Connecticut, and Palmer worked as a Congregationalist minister. By 1850, he owned $1,800 of real estate. They moved to Newark, New Jersey, in the 1850s, and by 1860, he owned $3,500 of real estate and $1,300 of personal property.
The family moved to Portland, Connecticut, in the 1860s. By 1870, he owned $2,500 of real estate and $1,000 of personal property. His wife died on May 5, 1871, and by 1880, he was living in his son George’s household in Portland. He died there on April 4, 1889, “from the effects of a shock.”