01Biography
Joel Palmer, a canal builder and Indiana legislator, crossed to Oregon in 1845 to see whether it was worth moving his family there. At The Dalles he found the boats down the Columbia scarce and costly, so he led fifteen families to join Sam Barlow's search for a way around Mount Hood. Palmer climbed high on the mountain, to about 7,500 feet, to look for a route, and he and Barlow scouted ahead together.
Snow stopped the wagons, and Palmer went ahead to the settlements. He went back to Indiana in 1846, published his Journal of Travels in Cincinnati in 1847, and returned that year as captain of a large wagon train. His book, full of notes on campsites, springs and what to pack, became a popular guide to the trail.
02Why they matter
Helped scout the wagon road around Mount Hood and wrote a popular guidebook for the emigrants who came after him.
03How they died
In the Cayuse War of 1848 he ran the volunteers' supplies, and from 1853 he was superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon Territory, negotiating treaties with many of the tribes of the region. Settlers turned on him for saying that whites had often started the fighting, and he resigned in 1856. He founded the town of Dayton, served as Speaker of the Oregon House, and died at Dayton on June 9, 1881, aged 70.
04Legacy
Palmer Glacier on Mount Hood is named for him, and his house in Dayton is on the National Register of Historic Places. At his death he was known as a defender of Native people.