Palmer

David Palmer was born in Malpeque, Prince Edward Island around 1774. It remains uncertain when the family arrived but their nationality is said to be English. David was a farmer and had a family of eleven children. His tenth child, James, was born in about 1822. He left home in his mid-twenties, shortly after his father’s death, and arrived in Gaspe about 1850.

In 1855 he married Maria Patterson (see Patterson Chart #4), daughter of John (1798) and Hannah Kitchen, and settled in on lot 22 in Wakeham. The old home is still occupied today by Francis Patterson and his wife Elsie Palmer. James is said to have worked on a whaling boat. He drowned in the York River on May 18, 1874 while working on a log drive. His body was not found until late June. Tradition has it that Lady Dufferin discovered the body while salmon fishing. The rapids where he drowned are still called Palmer’s Rapids.

James had a family of eight children. The eldest girl returned to Prince Edward Island. Three brothers, Edmund John, James Alfred, and Alfred William married and settled in Sunny Bank.