Maj Joseph Pearse Palmer

A Patriot of the American Revolution for MASSACHUSETTS with the rank of QUARTERMASTER GENERAL. DAR Ancestor # A086687

Birth: 7-31-1750 BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS

Death: 6-25-1797 WOODSTOCK VERMONT

Service Description:

1) QMGEN, PVT, CAPTS HALL,BILLINGS

2) COLS PALMER,BASS

NOTE:There is a discrepancy on his date of death. The DAR index lists it as 1797 and many of the Boston Tea Party sites list it as 1788.

   An ardent patriot, Joseph was among those who dressed as Indians and dumped tea into Boston Harbor. He was involved in the Battle of Lexington as well.

   "In the month of November, 1773, one evening about 10 oclock, I was sitting rocking my baby in the cradle, when I heard the gate and door open. I supposed my husband was just returning from his club, and so I opened the parlor door, and there stood three stout looking Indians! I screamed, and should have fainted of very fright, had I not recognized my husbands voice, saying, dont be frightened, Betsey, it is I. We have only been making a little salt water tea. His two companions were Foster Candy and Stephen Bruce. Soon after this secretary Flucher called upon my husband and said to him, Joe, you are so obnoxious to the British government, that you had better leave town. You can take your personal property, but none of your goods. Accordingly we left town, and went to live in part of my fathers house in Watertown." --Betsey Hunt, from an oral account a few years before her death.

  Joseph Pearse Palmer was the only son of distinguished General Joseph Palmer, Senior. Before the war, he dealt West India goods and hardware at the Boston dock, where he participated in the tea protest. Palmer was a member of the Masonic Lodge of Massachusetts. He also served in the battles of Boston, Rhode Island as a brigade major and as a quartermaster-general. Tragically, he died accidentally by falling off a bridge in Connecticut in 1788. 

Source: http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/joseph-pearse-palmer

Info added per DARs "Lineage Book of the Charter Members" by Mary S Lockwood and published 1895