L. A. Palmer, editor of the Ripley Enterprise, was born February 22, 1840,
\naboard the ship “Henry G. Pressley,” in the East Indies. His father was a
\nnative of England, and followed the sea for fifty-four years, being master of
\na vessel the most of the time. His mother, Isabella Wise, was also a native
\nof England, and a great-granddaughter of Sir George Grenville; she spent a
\ngreat deal of her time on the ocean, and four of the five children born to
\nthem, were born on ship-board. She died in 1849, and was buried 86\u00b0 east
\nlongitude and 3\u00b0, 40′ latitude, and there being no minister on the ship, the
\nbereaved husband read the beautiful and impressive Episcopal burial service,
\nwhile our subject and his three-year-old sister stood with clasped hands, the
\nonly mourners. Having left the sea in 1850, the father lived in Kentucky, and
\nthen in Illinois, where he died in 1868, being eighty-eight years old. All of
\nthe Palmer family — as far as known — have been seafaring men, and have held
\nresponsible positions. Our subject learned his alphabet from a cooking stove
\nthat had “Hitchcock & Glassner, manufacturers, Gravesend,” engraved on it. He
\nenter the Bible Publishing House, at New York, to serve an apprenticeship of
\nthree years. Mr. Palmer then fired on a railroad engine, and took a trip
\nacross the plains and returned, and commenced to learn piloting on a boat; but
\ntheir boat, the “A. T. Lacy,” burning at Booth’s Point, and destroying many of
\nthe passengers, he lost his taste for piloting, but during the war he took an
\nactive part for a time as engineer of a Confederate gun-boat. In 1865 he went
\nto sea as steward of a ship, and served in various capacities until 1871. In
\n1872 he published the Richmond Headlight aboard the steamer “Richmond,”
\nrunning from New Orleans to Louisville. From 1872 to 1877 he traversed the
\nUnited States as a journeyman printer, visiting all of the cities of any
\nimportance. In 1878 Mr. Palmer was united in marriage to Margaret hall, by
\nwhom he has four children. In 1885 he established the Ripley Enterprise, and
\nthe merits of the paper establish his claim as a fine journalist. He has led
\na varied and romantic life, is a man of bright fancies, warm sympathy and
\nunusual energy, and bids fair to rank as one of the brilliant journalists of
\nthe new South, and is not void of poetic insight, as the lines below, selected
\nfrom one of his poems, testify:<\/p>\n
Pass on! and leave me standing here alone. My soul predicts the future holds
\nfor thee Wealth and the fame of men; it hath for me Life’s humbler duties.
\nDear, thy every tone Hath made my pathway brighter. No weak moan Shall pass
\nmy lips because my eyes may see Thine nevermore on earth, altho’ the tree Hang
\nleafless o’er my head that once weighed down With its abundant harvest. Many
\na ray From out the golden past shines on the rain; But for the storm and tears
\nof life, the day Had never its fair rainbow. Blessed pain, That makes us
\ntrust our Father, till the way Lead heavenward, friend, and we clasp hands
\nagain!<\/p>\n
Goodspeed’s Biographies of Lauderdale Co., TN <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" L. A. Palmer, editor of the Ripley Enterprise, was born February 22, 1840, aboard the ship “Henry G. Pressley,” in the East Indies. His father was a native of England, and followed the sea for fifty-four years, being master of …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[124],"class_list":["post-3279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biographies","tag-palmer"],"modified_by":"Jim Daniel","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3279"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3292,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279\/revisions\/3292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/lauderdale\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}