Luther R. Palmer
Politician. Born: January 9, 1819, Catham, New York. Married: Helen L., 1845. Died: March 29, 1883, St. Marys, Kansas.
One of the three physician delegates at the 1859 convention, Dr. Luther R. Palmer was born in Chatham, Columbia County, New York, on January 9, 1819, and was educated at a Quaker boarding school there. He then graduated from the Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and practiced medicine for four years in New York before moving to Berrien County, Michigan. Dr. Palmer married to Helen L.______, also a native of New York, about 1845. (Palmer remarried to Amelia E. _______, an Indiana native, during the 1860s.) The Palmers moved from Michigan in 1850 to what would become Kansas Territory, where the doctor worked as physician for the Potawatomi Agency; in 1867 he was appointed U.S. Indian agent to the Potawatomis in the Central Superintendency. Palmer was active in local political affairs, serving as St. Mary's first postmaster (beginning in March 1855 and again beginning in October 1882) and representing Pottawatomie County as a delegate to the Wyandotte Convention; subsequently, he served as a member of the territorial council and as a Republican in the state senate in 1873-1874. He accumulated a considerable amount of property in the vicinity of St. Marys, Kansas, where he died on March 29, 1883.
Entry: Palmer, Luther R.
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: June 2011
Date Modified: January 2013
The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.
