Erastus Dow Palmer

Erastus Dow Palmer was an American sculptor.

Palmer was born in Pompey, New York on April 2, 1817. He was the second of nine children. He showed early artistic promise, and pursued his father's trade of carpentry. Palmer married Matilda Alton in 1839 and had a son, but both mother and child died soon after; he remarried, to Mary Jean Seamans, in 1840, and settled in Utica, New York. In his leisure moments as a carpenter Palmer started by carving portraits in cameo, and earned the encouragement of Thomas R. Walker, a local art patron in Utica, who introduced him to prominent artists in New York City.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023