The Curious Last Letter of Zephaniah Platt Palmer

High up my family tree is a Palmer branch with my great-great-great-great grandfather Zephaniah Platt Palmer. He was born during the first part of the Revolutionary War in upstate New York at a place not far from Vermont called Nine Partners. When he was around 19 years old, he married Judith Manley in Addison, Vermont, southeast of Lake Champlain. They lived there a year or two and then moved across the lake to Jay, Essex County, New York, and then soon after that settled near a little town called Peru in Clinton County.

Two census records, a geographical dictionary, and an entry in a biographical dictionary say that Zephaniah and Judith reared a large family, engaging in agriculture and later in shares of the various mills and factories that came to be located on the Ausable River near their town. Zephaniah and Judith seemed to have taken in grandchildren and other young people from time to time. Judith died long before Zephaniah.

There are no other known official records showing Zephaniah Platt Palmer. However, several of his letters to his granddaughter Julia Esalina Palmer (younger daughter of his son Henry) have been handed down to us. They show a delightful, if slightly irascible man. Here is a transcript of the last letter he wrote, just five days before he passed away:

            Jay  August 28 1854

Dear Julia,                  

I received your favor dated April 30^th with the greatest parantal satisfaction and thanks for kind affectionate feelings for a Grandpa eavin in a Granddaughter altho I can only reward you with greatful heart feeling yet my hearts desire is that a heavenly parent may reward you far beyond what my feable  power could bestow ~ ~  and not feeling myself worthy of such Kind Children I at times feal to desire the pinions of an Eagle to pass with spead to my distant Children Yet there is one at times visits this part his name is Winter by his reckless Conduct destresses his Connections here Greatly believe him not should he visit you pleas be ware of him furthermore ~ ~ my own health is much improved since last spring as have ben quite out for two years past all your Connections and old acquaintances are injoying middling health except Chapin Flanders whose health is now poor ~ ~ our present season has ben remarkably bad we have ben visited wit the greatest droth eaver Known in our land destruction by fires has ben teribel and not the half the Common Crop will be realisid ~ ~ I have greate anxity to visit you would gladly this winter shall if any consistent with my engagements in my affairs on the receipt of this please write me a full history of what you know of all our Connections in that part must close by subscribing myself your Granpa in the bonds of love

Z: Palmer

            J:E: Palmer

Give my best Respects to Mr Barns as I hope to se him in Ohio

**********************

This letter raises some interesting questions. If I were of a serene and unsuspicious nature, I might have thought his reference to Winter was a pun on the season and a complaint about the climate. But I am much too cynical for that idea. What had Winter Palmer done to deserve his father’s wrath?

Another letter Julia passed down to us was from her sister Jane in 1847 or 1848, who wrote to Julia when Julia was visiting all the relatives in New York, and desired Julia to give their uncle Winter and aunt Emily her love. Jane remembered them from her childhood in the early 1830s.

The 1840 Census shows Winter and a wife living in Peru. But in 1850 the only Winter Palmer I can find is in Milwaukie, Wisconsin with a woman named Betsey, age 26, and a baby girl named Rosella (which is a name that occurs over and over again in this branch of the family). Did Winter leave Emily for a woman named Betsey and is that why his father was angry with him? Or did Emily die right after Jane wrote that letter, did Winter remarry before 1850 and have a child, and in 1854 did he then abandon Betsey and Rosella? I can’t find any of them in any later census records. I can’t find a grave for any of them. I wonder what other records are out there that I could try.

Why was Zephaniah so set against Winter Palmer?