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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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PALMER, JAMES MARSHALL (1861-1945)

PALMER, JAMES MARSHALL, principal of the Chatham Grammar School, 1882-89; b. Canning parish, Queens Co., N.B., 25 Jan 1861, s/o John Palmer and Eleanor Agnes Marshall; brother of George Canning Prince Palmer; m. 1896, Alice Maud Vandine, of Fredericton; d. Toronto, 5 Sep 1945.

James M. Palmer was educated at the Queens County Grammar School under Philip Cox and the University of New Brunswick (BA 1880, MA 1890), where he was an outstanding mathematics student and a gold medalist.

Palmer had fifteen months of teaching experience in Campbellton before he was appointed principal of the grammar school at Chatham in January 1882, at age twenty-one, as successor to Charles G. D. Roberts. At that time the school had five classrooms, one of which was for the high school grades taught by the principal and an assistant. In 1887 a brick schoolhouse was erected by the Highland Society, and in November of that year the grammar school was moved into the new building, under a lease signed by the school trustees.

Palmer took an interest in recreational activities for young men and was the organizer and president of the Osceola Toboggan and Snow Shoe Club in 1885. In 1886 he was elected president of the Northumberland County Teachers' Institute. He stayed at the school until 1889, when he was appointed to succeed George R. Parkin as classics teacher at the Fredericton Collegiate. While occupying this position he was a member of the UNB senate. In 1894 he was named to the principalship of Mount Allison Academy and Commercial College, and he held this position until his retirement in 1930. In Sackville he also played a part in community and church affairs. He was granted an MA by Mount Allison in 1895 and an honorary LLD in 1913.

In a personal obituary Palmer was described as "a brilliant teacher, a keen administrator, a stern disciplinarian of impartial fairness, and a cultured Christian gentleman." He and his wife, Alice M. Vandine, had one son, Kenneth Borden Palmer, OBE, who was the Rhodes Scholar for New Brunswick in 1926 and later a lawyer and businessman in Toronto.

Sources

[b] Morgan (CM&W) 1912 [m] Advocate 12 Aug 1896 [d] scrapbook #99 / Advance 14 Feb 1889; Advocate 20 Feb 1889, 21 Jun 1894; Can. Who's Who 1948 (re. Kenneth Borden Palmer); Fraser (C); PPMP; World 8 Feb 1882, 9 Oct 1886


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