CHARLESTON COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA - BIOGRAPHY -PALMER, (Rev.) Benjamin Morgan, Charleston, S. C., then Orleans Parish,
Louisiana


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Contributed to The USGenWeb Archives by:
 Mike Miller   (mike_m@deq.state.la.us)
 19 Nov 1998

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Rev. Benjamin Morgan Palmer, D. D., LL.D, the eminent Southern divine, is a
native of Charleston, S. C., born January 25, 1818.  Dr. Palmer is
descended from English ancestry, both on the paternal and maternal side,
both families dating back many generations to the early colonial days.

From its settlement in the United States there has been an almost unbroken
line of clergymen in the Palmer family.  William Palmer, the great ancestor
in this country of the branch of the family of which Dr. Palmer is a
member, came over from England in the ship "Fortune," the next vessel
succeeding the "Mayflower."  He became one of the sterling pioneers of the
Massachusetts colony, and reared a family.  One of his sons, Rev. Samuel
Palmer, was a graduate of Harvard and a learned divine.  He died in 1755 at
the age of sixty-eight years.  Job Palmer, a son of Rev. Samuel Palmer,
removed to Charleston, S. C., prior to the Revolution, where he resided
until his death at the age of ninety-nine years.  Two of his sons became
eminent ministers and scholars.  The eldest, Rev. B. M. Palmer, D. D., was
a graduate of Princeton and for many years pastor of the Circular church,
Charleston, S. C.  He died in 1847, aged sixty-seven years.  Rev. Edward
Palmer, the second son of Job, married Miss Sarah Bunce, a sister of Dr. B.
M. Palmer's wife.  After marriage he determined to study for the ministry.
Entering the academy at Andover, Mass., he pursued a course of study and
later entered the seminary without taking a collegiate course.  He had,
however, attained such proficiency in his studies that by special
application he was granted the degree of B. A. by Yale college.  Returning
to South Carolina he pursued his ministerial duties until his death at the
very ripe old age of ninety-four years.  Benjamin Morgan Palmer, his son,
during his boyhood, was taken charge of by his mother, who laid the
foundation for a sound English education.  Upon the removal of his parents
to Walterboro he availed himself of the schools of that time, and having
mastered all they could teach him, at the early age of fourteen it was
determined to send him to a Northern college. Accordingly, in 1832, he
entered Amherst college, Mass., where he spent a part of two years.  He
returned home in 1834 and for the two succeeding years was engaged in
teaching.  In 1837 he entered the University of Georgia at Athens, from
which he graduated with distinction, August, 1838.  On January 1, 1839, he
entered the Theological seminary at Columbia, S. C., and remained there
until he had completed the course.  He was licensed to preach by the
Presbytery of Charleston, April, 1841.  His ministerial labors were begun
at Anderson, S. C.  After three months, in answer to a call from the first
Presbyterian church of that city, he removed to Savannah, Ga., and in the
spring of 1842 he was ordained and installed pastor of that church by the
Presbytery of Georgia.  The winter of this year he accepted a call from the
Presbyterian church of Columbia, S. C., to which he removed early in 1843.
In 1847, in association with the Rev. Drs. Thornwell, Howe, Smythe and
others, he was one of the projectors and editors of the "Southern
Presbyterian Review," an influential religious quarterly published at
Columbia, S. C., which has maintained its existence throughout a late
period after the war, being recognized as one of the ablest organs of the
Presbyterian church.  In 1853, while still in charge of the church at
Columbia, Dr. Palmer was elected to the chair of ecclesiastical history and
church polity in the Theological seminary at Columbia, which two offices he
filled conjointly until the close of 1856.  During a visit to the
Southwest, in the winter of 1855, in the interest of the Theological
seminary, he had been brought in contact with the First Presbyterian church
of New Orleans.  As a result a call was extended him in 1856, and in
December of that year he was installed pastor of the church, which he has
since continuously served.   In 1860, Dr. Palmer was elected to the chair
of pastoral theology in Princeton Theological seminary.  In 1874 he was
called to the chancellorship of the Southwestern Presbyterian university at
Clarksville, Tenn., and in 1881, he was elected professor of pastoral
theology in the Theological seminary of Columbia, S. C.  He has received
numerous calls to pastorates, many of them from the great centers of
population of the East and West.  All of these flattering positions he
declined that be might remain with his New Orleans congregation.  Although
thoroughly identified with the "old school" of the Presbyterian church, Dr.
Palmer was too young to take part in the memorable controversy which led to
the disruption of the old and new schools in 1837.  His sympathies were
enlisted, however, on the side of a strict construction of the constitution
of the church, and he participated in the discussion in opposition to the
boards and on the elder question.  Taking but little part in political
affairs, as a rule, he, nevertheless, entertains strong views on the more
important political questions of the day, and in the question of secession
as in church matters, was a stickler for a strict interpretation of the
constitution.  Although deprecating under ordinary circumstances the
interposition of the clergy in political questions he rightly considered
when the crisis came that every patriotic citizen should speak out with no
uncertain sound, and believing that the liberties and the destiny of a
great people were in peril, he became an earnest supporter of the secession
movement.  In a sermon delivered in the church on Thanksgiving day,
December 29, 1860, he made an earnest appeal to the people to prepare for

the pending crisis.  He advised them in solemn counsel assembled to
proclaim the powers they had delegated.  Conjuring them to see that none
but men of tried fidelity should be sent to this convention, he closed his
admonition:  "Thus prepared for every contingency, let the crisis come.
Paradoxical as it may seem, if there be any way to save, or rather to
reconstruct the union of our forefathers, it is this  *  *  *  *  It only
remains to say that, whatever be the fortunes of the South, I accept them
for my own.  Born upon her soil, of a father thus born before me--from an
ancestry that occupied it while yet it was a part of England's
possessions--she is in every sense my mother.  I shall die upon her bosom.
She shall know no peril but it is my peril; no conflict but it is my
conflict; and no abyss of ruin into which I shall not share her fall.  May
the Lord God of battle, cover her head in this her day of battle."  When
sectional feeling ran so high that the Presbyterian church became divided,
Dr. Palmer took a prominent part and was elected moderator of the first
general assembly of the Southern Presbyterian church, which met in Augusta,
Ga., in December, 1861.  In May, 1862, when New Orleans fell into the hands
of the federal forces Dr. Palmer was in attendance on the session of the
general assembly of the Southern Presbyterian church, at Montgomery, Ala.,
and did not return to New Orleans until the summer of 1865.  He made his
home in Columbia, S. C., and, though he held no regular commission, spent a
considerable portion of each year preaching to the western army, moving
about from point to point as the exigencies of war demanded, and returning
to Columbia during the sessions of the Theological seminary, of which he
was the provincial professor of theology, having succeeded his intimate
friend, Rev. Dr. Thornwell, whose death occurred in August, 1862.  The war
over, he returned to New Orleans where he has since resided, exerting his
powerful influence for the advancement of his church and for the best
interests of his fellow-citizens.  His manifold labors in New Orleans have
been felt and appreciated.  Ever ready to co-operate personally in all
measures to restrain vice, reclaim the degraded and relieve the destitute;
attentive to the wants of the sick and suffering in times of epidemic and
extreme trial; combating as a pulpit orator the social and moral evils
extant in the city and state, Dr. Palmer has endeared himself to the people
whom he has so long and faithfully served.  In the "lottery issue" which
has of late so much agitated the people of Louisiana, Dr. Palmer has taken
a decided stand, and is one of its uncompromising and most potent foes.  A
recent speech made by him in, opposition to the proposed rechartering of
this institution has elicited widespread attention, and is generally
recognized as the most masterly and unanswerable argument produced upon the
question.  Dr. Palmer has been a voluminous contributor to the "Southern
Presbyterian Review;" is the author of "The Life and Letters of James Henry
Thornwell, D.D.,"  "The Family--In its Civil and Churchly Aspects, an Essay

in two parts,"  "Sermons" published in weekly numbers forming two volumes
and a number of addresses and lectures published in pamphlet form, among
which may be mentioned "The Tribunal of History," a lecture delivered
before the Louisiana Historical society of New Orleans in 1872, and "The
Present Crisis and its Issues," delivered at the Washington and Lee
university in 1872.  As a pulpit orator Dr. Palmer has not a peer in the
South.  He is forcible, logical and dignified.  His attitude in speaking is
extremely graceful, and his every gesture lends a special force to his
argument.  He preaches entirely extemporaneously, to which fact no doubt,
is due much of the peculiar grace and feeling which characterizes and is
the most attractive feature of his speaking.  In stature Dr. Palmer is of
medium hight [sic] and well proportioned.  He has a piercing, sharp gray
eye and a very expressive countenance.  In disposition he's generous,
affable and courteous.  Free in manner and easy of approach, he is popular
with all classes.  Dr. Palmer was united in marriage October 7, 1841, with
Miss Mary A. McConnell, daughter of Dr. McConnell, a physician of Liberty
county, Ga.  Of six children born to them, five died, leaving but one
daughter, the wife of Dr. J. W. Caldwell, professor of natural science in
the Southwestern Presbyterian university, living.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp.298-300 .
Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.



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