Bradley Palmer
Encyclopedia
Bradley Webster Palmer was the son of a wealthy Pennsylvania family of Republican lawyers and congressmen who sent him as a teen-ager to be educated in the best private schools of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Graduating from Harvard College
in 1888 he went on for a year at Harvard Law and then returned to Pennsylvania. After a year in his father's law firm he went back to Boston in 1890 to join a newly formed (1887) Boston law firm under Moorfield Storey
. He resided in Boston on Marlborough Street and worked on State Street. During this period he began to buy land on the North Shore
of Massachusetts in Essex County
. As he was only 25 or 26 at the time and was not in a senior position it is possible to speculate that his family continued to assist him financially. He had been in the Pennsylvania National Guard. In 1895 the records of the Boston Battery Field Artillery (Massachusetts Militia, today the National Guard) record that one Bradley W. Palmer of Pennsylvania enlisted as a private. He was discharged as a corporal in 1899. The militia was never activated while he was in it; that is, his duties did not require full-time active service. He remained a lawyer during that time.
Subsequently Bradley was given more responsible work to do by Moorfield. He was assigned the legal work handed to the firm by Boston Fruit Company
. At this point he began to evidence the financial genius that immediately enrichened him and catapulted him into a national and then international reputation. In 1899 putting together the merger that created the United Fruit Company
and subsequently buying up most of the company's competition in the banana import business he served their interest with such diligence and integrity that he acquired a national reputation as an expert in business law. He became a partner in the firm. He testified at congressional hearings. He served as legal counsel and was on the boards of directors for a number of corporations, including State Street Trust, Revere Sugar Refining, Gillette Safety Razor Co. and others. The upper echelons of government began to take an interest in his advice. He advised the Federal Reserve Board and a number of presidents, including Woodrow Wilson
. He testified before congress on the business aspects of the proposed peace treaty with Germany.
Meanwhile he had adopted Massachusetts as his native state. He purchased more land on the North Shore. In 1902 he hired architectural advisors from Italy to help him design a mansion on the site of the present Bradley Palmer State Park. This move followed his enrichment by the United Fruit Company merger a few years before. He was 36. This estate subsequently became internationally known. Like many figures of international repute, Bradley was a horseman, stabled horses, and designed his estate to exercise them. He managed to host the leaders of governments over much of the world. He became an expediter of national and international state business at his estate. These activities left him no time or inclination to marry. On his death in 1948 at age 82 he left the bulk of his lands to the people of Massachusetts as state parks for their enjoyment.
, who was possibly one of the original Scrooby congregation
of puritan separatists. He sailed on the vessel Fortune in 1621 from Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, settling finally in Duxbury. Three other related Palmers from the same region of England were in Massachusetts by 1635. The Palmers have been prolific and are widely spread throughout the United States. Bradley Palmer descended ultimately from William. Bradley's grandfather on his father's side, Gideon, was one of 17 children fathered by Gideon Palmer of Rhode Island. The grandfather moved to Pennsylvania
Bradley Webster Palmer was born on June 28, 1866, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. His father was Henry W. Palmer
, who served in the Congress of the United States. Born in Clifford, Pennsylvania, HW Palmer at first attended seminary, then went to the National Law School at Poughkeepsie, New York, graduating in 1860. He was admitted to the bar in New York in 1860 and in Pennsylvania 1861. That year he married Ellen M. Webster in New York. She was from a poor family, about on a par with Henry's resources at the time. Her father, George W. Webster, had moved to New York from New Hampshire. He was a vestryman at the local Episcopal church. Ellen was one of several children, not all of whom survived to adulthood. While married to Henry she became a public advocate of laws against child labor, which was then rampant in the mines of Pennsylvania.
Subsequently Henry joined the Union Army, serving as a pay clerk at New Orleans, 1862–1863. Then he started a law office in Wikes-barre, Pennsylvania (Palmer, Dewitt and Fuller), where he worked for the rest of his life when not in political office. Among his offices he was Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania, 1879–1883, and a member of congress, 1901–1907 and 1909. Henry was Republican even though his father had been a Democrat. The family fortune apparently did not begin with Henry, as Gideon, a prosperous farmer, had been a Justice of the Peace, a Sheriff, a member of the Pennsylvania State Legislature and a paymaster in the United States Army, with a reputation of not losing a penny. Henry, a highly successful and influential lawyer and politician, improved it considerably. Kulp says of
in New Hampshire
, where he was admitted at the age of 16 in 1882. He graduated in 1884 at the age of 18. From there he went immediately to Harvard University
, receiving an AB in 1888. He was a treasurer of the Harvard Lampoon
and a member of the Hasty Pudding Club
. He stayed on an extra year in Harvard University School of Law, earning the AM in 1889. He was a proctor that year. Returning to Wilkes-Barre he went to work in his father's law office there in 1889 at the age of 23 and passed the bar in Pennsylvania
in 1890. He showed some interest in the military, serving the 9th Regiment, Pennsylvania National Guard, 1888-1889. Then he apparently turned his back on Pennsylvania and returned to Boston, 1891, passing the bar in Massachusetts in 1892.
by a merger of Preston's firm and the banana import business of Minor Cooper Heath. Bradley became a director and a permanent member of the executive committee, while his law partners were listed as executives. Their first move was to buy outright or buy an interest in 14 competitors. They now had a monopoly on the Costa Rica
n banana import business and controlled 80% of the entire business in the United States. These moves under Bradley's tutelage brought instant wealth to everyone concerned. The profits in 1899 were 1.6 million, and were up to 6.2 million by 1907. For all business purposes, Bradley was United Fruit. When the first anti-trust suit was brought against United Fruit in 1909, charging that it had created a monopoly and was using its financial interests in the competition (in this case the Bluefields Steamship Company) to suppress their business, Palmer, as secretary, was named along with Preston and Heath, the president and vice president.
Palmer was a lawyer and partner with multiple Boston
-based corporations, including the United Fruit Company (which controlled large land holdings and agriculture in Central America), Gillette
, and IT&T. He was an attorney for Sinclair Oil
during the Teapot Dome scandal
.
in Hamilton
, Massachusetts, which is known for its golf course and its equestrianism. Periodically it holds steeple-chasing events, polo matches, horse shows and fox hunts. One of its past polo players has been General George S. Patton
, who bought a farm (Green Meadow Farm) in the area next to Palmer's estate, which is still owned by the Patton family, the descendants of the World War II general. Every several years British royalty attends an event; the current queen has been seen there. Bradley Palmer hosted some of these events on his estate, but his association with the royal family dates to before the reign of Elizabeth II. Bradley died in 1948.
Like many others of the social milieu in which he lived, Bradley enjoyed numerous individualisms, such as smoking a cigar with the end stuck in a pipe bowl.
Bradley decided to join the ranks of American who contribute their talents to the upper levels of public service for motives other than profit; in the words of the American aphorism, "he didn't need the money." The Trading With The Enemy act of 1917 created the office of Alien Property Custodian
, an appointee of the President of the United States. It was charged with the investigation of attempts by German nationals to conceal their extensive property of all sorts in the United States, and with the confiscation and disposition of this property. Most of it was held in trust until a final decision as to its disposition would be made at the end of the war. President Woodrow Wilson
's first appointee was Alexander Mitchell Palmer
, known as a crusading and fearless Attorney General of the United States. He was not related to Bradley Palmer. He found ample work to do, expanding his staff to include a number of investigators who, as it turns out, were the top financial minds in the country. One of these was Bradley W. Palmer. They did both investigations and dispositions, mainly by sale, for which legal expertise was required. All of them, including the Custodian, served without pay. In 1918 Bradley was also appointed to an advisory committee supporting the Federal Reserve Board, also serving without pay. He was to be the board's lawyer.
and nature-lover, he continued to purchase land as he accumulated the means. At one point, he owned over 10,000 acres (40 km²) on the North Shore
of Massachusetts
in towns such as Boxford
, Georgetown
, Hamilton
, Ipswich
, Rowley
, and Topsfield.
In 1898 Palmer purchased the hereditary farm holdings of the Lamson family, some 747 acres (3 km²). This would become the estate in which he resided, known as Willow Dale. The mansion was built in 1902. Famous visitors to Willow Dale included the Prince Edward VIII, Prince of Wales
and President
William Howard Taft
.
.
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
in 1888 he went on for a year at Harvard Law and then returned to Pennsylvania. After a year in his father's law firm he went back to Boston in 1890 to join a newly formed (1887) Boston law firm under Moorfield Storey
Moorfield Storey
Moorfield Storey was an American lawyer, publicist, and civil rights leader. According to Storey's biographer, William B...
. He resided in Boston on Marlborough Street and worked on State Street. During this period he began to buy land on the North Shore
North Shore (Massachusetts)
The North Shore is a region in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, loosely defined as the coastal area between Boston and New Hampshire. The region is made up both of a rocky coastline, dotted with marshes and wetlands, as well as several beaches and natural harbors. The North Shore is an important...
of Massachusetts in Essex County
Essex County, Massachusetts
-National protected areas:* Parker River National Wildlife Refuge* Salem Maritime National Historic Site* Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site* Thacher Island National Wildlife Refuge-Demographics:...
. As he was only 25 or 26 at the time and was not in a senior position it is possible to speculate that his family continued to assist him financially. He had been in the Pennsylvania National Guard. In 1895 the records of the Boston Battery Field Artillery (Massachusetts Militia, today the National Guard) record that one Bradley W. Palmer of Pennsylvania enlisted as a private. He was discharged as a corporal in 1899. The militia was never activated while he was in it; that is, his duties did not require full-time active service. He remained a lawyer during that time.
Subsequently Bradley was given more responsible work to do by Moorfield. He was assigned the legal work handed to the firm by Boston Fruit Company
Boston Fruit Company
The Boston Fruit Company was a fruit production and import business based in the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Andrew W. Preston and nine others established the firm to ship bananas and other fruit from the West Indes to north-eastern America. At the time, the banana was "considered a rare and...
. At this point he began to evidence the financial genius that immediately enrichened him and catapulted him into a national and then international reputation. In 1899 putting together the merger that created the United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...
and subsequently buying up most of the company's competition in the banana import business he served their interest with such diligence and integrity that he acquired a national reputation as an expert in business law. He became a partner in the firm. He testified at congressional hearings. He served as legal counsel and was on the boards of directors for a number of corporations, including State Street Trust, Revere Sugar Refining, Gillette Safety Razor Co. and others. The upper echelons of government began to take an interest in his advice. He advised the Federal Reserve Board and a number of presidents, including Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
. He testified before congress on the business aspects of the proposed peace treaty with Germany.
Meanwhile he had adopted Massachusetts as his native state. He purchased more land on the North Shore. In 1902 he hired architectural advisors from Italy to help him design a mansion on the site of the present Bradley Palmer State Park. This move followed his enrichment by the United Fruit Company merger a few years before. He was 36. This estate subsequently became internationally known. Like many figures of international repute, Bradley was a horseman, stabled horses, and designed his estate to exercise them. He managed to host the leaders of governments over much of the world. He became an expediter of national and international state business at his estate. These activities left him no time or inclination to marry. On his death in 1948 at age 82 he left the bulk of his lands to the people of Massachusetts as state parks for their enjoyment.
Family background
Palmer is an English name, meaning originally one who wears the palm on his hat or staff after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The American Palmers in Bradley Palmer's ancestral line came from William Palmer, NottinghamshireNottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, who was possibly one of the original Scrooby congregation
Scrooby Congregation
The Scrooby Congregation were English Protestant separatists who lived near Scrooby, Nottinghamshire. Starting in 1607/8 the Congregation emigrated to Holland in search of the freedom to worship as they chose...
of puritan separatists. He sailed on the vessel Fortune in 1621 from Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, settling finally in Duxbury. Three other related Palmers from the same region of England were in Massachusetts by 1635. The Palmers have been prolific and are widely spread throughout the United States. Bradley Palmer descended ultimately from William. Bradley's grandfather on his father's side, Gideon, was one of 17 children fathered by Gideon Palmer of Rhode Island. The grandfather moved to Pennsylvania
Bradley Webster Palmer was born on June 28, 1866, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. His father was Henry W. Palmer
Henry Wilbur Palmer
Henry Wilbur Palmer was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.Henry W. Palmer was born in Clifford Township, Pennsylvania. He attended Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, Pennsylvania, and Fort Edward Institute in Fort Edward, New York...
, who served in the Congress of the United States. Born in Clifford, Pennsylvania, HW Palmer at first attended seminary, then went to the National Law School at Poughkeepsie, New York, graduating in 1860. He was admitted to the bar in New York in 1860 and in Pennsylvania 1861. That year he married Ellen M. Webster in New York. She was from a poor family, about on a par with Henry's resources at the time. Her father, George W. Webster, had moved to New York from New Hampshire. He was a vestryman at the local Episcopal church. Ellen was one of several children, not all of whom survived to adulthood. While married to Henry she became a public advocate of laws against child labor, which was then rampant in the mines of Pennsylvania.
Subsequently Henry joined the Union Army, serving as a pay clerk at New Orleans, 1862–1863. Then he started a law office in Wikes-barre, Pennsylvania (Palmer, Dewitt and Fuller), where he worked for the rest of his life when not in political office. Among his offices he was Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania, 1879–1883, and a member of congress, 1901–1907 and 1909. Henry was Republican even though his father had been a Democrat. The family fortune apparently did not begin with Henry, as Gideon, a prosperous farmer, had been a Justice of the Peace, a Sheriff, a member of the Pennsylvania State Legislature and a paymaster in the United States Army, with a reputation of not losing a penny. Henry, a highly successful and influential lawyer and politician, improved it considerably. Kulp says of
"The qualities that have made him so unusually successful are manifold, but principal among them are his great common sense, his undaunted courage, both in assault and defense, his contempt of all shams, and his fine power of invective."It seems clear that Bradley's father was a major influence in his life, as well as that of his younger brother, Henry Webster Palmer, who also was sent to Massachusetts, went to Harvard, and became a lawyer, remaining in Pennsylvania.
Education and service
Bradley's parents sent him to Phillips Exeter AcademyPhillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, where he was admitted at the age of 16 in 1882. He graduated in 1884 at the age of 18. From there he went immediately to Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, receiving an AB in 1888. He was a treasurer of the Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
and a member of the Hasty Pudding Club
Hasty Pudding Club
The Hasty Pudding Club is a social club for Harvard students. It was founded by Nymphus Hatch, a junior at Harvard College, in 1770. The club is named for the traditional American dish that the founding members ate at their first meeting...
. He stayed on an extra year in Harvard University School of Law, earning the AM in 1889. He was a proctor that year. Returning to Wilkes-Barre he went to work in his father's law office there in 1889 at the age of 23 and passed the bar in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
in 1890. He showed some interest in the military, serving the 9th Regiment, Pennsylvania National Guard, 1888-1889. Then he apparently turned his back on Pennsylvania and returned to Boston, 1891, passing the bar in Massachusetts in 1892.
Legal career
Until 1899 Bradley's chief work in the firm of Storey, Thorndike and Palmer had been to check the legality of bonds and then to handle the legal business of the Boston Fruit Company, the company of Andrew W. Preston, a Boston banana importer. In that year, however, he created the United Fruit CompanyUnited Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...
by a merger of Preston's firm and the banana import business of Minor Cooper Heath. Bradley became a director and a permanent member of the executive committee, while his law partners were listed as executives. Their first move was to buy outright or buy an interest in 14 competitors. They now had a monopoly on the Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
n banana import business and controlled 80% of the entire business in the United States. These moves under Bradley's tutelage brought instant wealth to everyone concerned. The profits in 1899 were 1.6 million, and were up to 6.2 million by 1907. For all business purposes, Bradley was United Fruit. When the first anti-trust suit was brought against United Fruit in 1909, charging that it had created a monopoly and was using its financial interests in the competition (in this case the Bluefields Steamship Company) to suppress their business, Palmer, as secretary, was named along with Preston and Heath, the president and vice president.
Palmer was a lawyer and partner with multiple Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
-based corporations, including the United Fruit Company (which controlled large land holdings and agriculture in Central America), Gillette
Global Gillette
Gillette is a brand of Procter & Gamble currently used for safety razors, among other personal care products. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, it was one of several brands originally owned by The Gillette Company, a leading global supplier of products under various brands, which was...
, and IT&T. He was an attorney for Sinclair Oil
Sinclair Oil
Sinclair Oil Corporation is an American petroleum corporation, founded by Harry F. Sinclair on May 1, 1916 as the Sinclair Oil & Refining Corporation by combining the assets of 11 small petroleum companies. Originally a New York corporation, Sinclair Oil reincorporated in Wyoming in 1976...
during the Teapot Dome scandal
Teapot Dome scandal
The Teapot Dome Scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States in 1922–23, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome and two other locations to private oil companies at low...
.
Personal life
Palmer never married, but he was not a recluse in any sense of the word. He threw himself vigorously into the social life of the North Shore of Massachusetts, which is relatively densely populated with horse farms. He belonged to Myopia Hunt ClubMyopia Hunt Club
Myopia Hunt Club is a foxhunting and private country club at 435 Bay Road in South Hamilton, Massachusetts founded in 1882 by J. Murray Forbes. The name "Myopia" is due to some of its founding members having come from the Myopia Club in Winchester, Massachusetts, which had been founded by four...
in Hamilton
Hamilton, Massachusetts
Hamilton is a town located in the eastern central portion of Essex County in eastern Massachusetts. It is primarily a suburban bedroom community, most commonly known for its equestrian estates...
, Massachusetts, which is known for its golf course and its equestrianism. Periodically it holds steeple-chasing events, polo matches, horse shows and fox hunts. One of its past polo players has been General George S. Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...
, who bought a farm (Green Meadow Farm) in the area next to Palmer's estate, which is still owned by the Patton family, the descendants of the World War II general. Every several years British royalty attends an event; the current queen has been seen there. Bradley Palmer hosted some of these events on his estate, but his association with the royal family dates to before the reign of Elizabeth II. Bradley died in 1948.
Like many others of the social milieu in which he lived, Bradley enjoyed numerous individualisms, such as smoking a cigar with the end stuck in a pipe bowl.
Formal and informal public service
By 1917 Bradley Palmer was wealthy beyond personal interest. He had everything in which he taken an interest in acquiring: extensive land ownership on the North Shore of Massachusetts, an estate near Boston on which he could indulge in equestrianism, a mansion designed by Italian architects and a large number of friends. He belonged to a number of corporate boards and a larger number of non-profit organizations of varying character. He contributed a steady stream of funds to causes and activities he considered worthy. His career now altered course away from United Fruit and profiteering. He was not essentially involved in the anti-imperialist campaigns subsequently launched against the company, which at that time was still viewed as making a contribution to the economies the countries from which it bought fruit. Bradley's chief work had been in acquisitions and defense against suits brought by the competition. Moorfield Storey, Palmer's partner, in fact was a liberal defender of equality and civil rights in the abolitionist tradition. He campaigned against what he termed imperialism. He had received numerous honors for it in the legal profession.Bradley decided to join the ranks of American who contribute their talents to the upper levels of public service for motives other than profit; in the words of the American aphorism, "he didn't need the money." The Trading With The Enemy act of 1917 created the office of Alien Property Custodian
Alien Property Custodian
An Alien Property Custodian was an office within the Government of the United States during World War I and again during World War II, serving as a Custodian of Enemy Property to property that belonged to US enemies.-World War I:...
, an appointee of the President of the United States. It was charged with the investigation of attempts by German nationals to conceal their extensive property of all sorts in the United States, and with the confiscation and disposition of this property. Most of it was held in trust until a final decision as to its disposition would be made at the end of the war. President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's first appointee was Alexander Mitchell Palmer
Alexander Mitchell Palmer
Alexander Mitchell Palmer was Attorney General of the United States from 1919 to 1921. He was nicknamed The Fighting Quaker and he directed the controversial Palmer Raids.-Congressional career:...
, known as a crusading and fearless Attorney General of the United States. He was not related to Bradley Palmer. He found ample work to do, expanding his staff to include a number of investigators who, as it turns out, were the top financial minds in the country. One of these was Bradley W. Palmer. They did both investigations and dispositions, mainly by sale, for which legal expertise was required. All of them, including the Custodian, served without pay. In 1918 Bradley was also appointed to an advisory committee supporting the Federal Reserve Board, also serving without pay. He was to be the board's lawyer.
Land holdings
Beginning in 1891 Palmer began to acquire land. An equestrianEquestrianism
Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...
and nature-lover, he continued to purchase land as he accumulated the means. At one point, he owned over 10,000 acres (40 km²) on the North Shore
North Shore (Massachusetts)
The North Shore is a region in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, loosely defined as the coastal area between Boston and New Hampshire. The region is made up both of a rocky coastline, dotted with marshes and wetlands, as well as several beaches and natural harbors. The North Shore is an important...
of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
in towns such as Boxford
Boxford, Massachusetts
Boxford is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,965 at the 2010 census.Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Boxford.-Geography:...
, Georgetown
Georgetown, Massachusetts
Georgetown is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 8,183 at the 2010 census. It was incorporated in 1838 from part of Rowley.-History:...
, Hamilton
Hamilton, Massachusetts
Hamilton is a town located in the eastern central portion of Essex County in eastern Massachusetts. It is primarily a suburban bedroom community, most commonly known for its equestrian estates...
, Ipswich
Ipswich, Massachusetts
Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,987 at the 2000 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island...
, Rowley
Rowley, Massachusetts
Rowley is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,500 at the 2000 census.Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Rowley.-History:...
, and Topsfield.
In 1898 Palmer purchased the hereditary farm holdings of the Lamson family, some 747 acres (3 km²). This would become the estate in which he resided, known as Willow Dale. The mansion was built in 1902. Famous visitors to Willow Dale included the Prince Edward VIII, Prince of Wales
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...
and President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
.
Bradley Palmer State Park
By 1944, Palmer had donated all of his land holdings in Massachusetts to the Commonwealth, leasing back the 107 acre (0.43301402 km²) surrounding his mansion. The estate is now incorporated as part of Bradley Palmer State ParkBradley Palmer State Park
Bradley Palmer State Park is a Massachusetts state park located in Hamilton, Massachusetts and Topsfield, Massachusetts. The park is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation. The park is based on a former estate willed to the state expressly for the use of its citizens on the death...
.