Palmer’s mother died when he was three years old. At age se­ven, he be­gan sing­ing in the church choir di­rect­ed by his fa­ther, An­son B. Palm­er. Ho­ra­tio at­tend­ed the Rush­ford Aca­de­my in New York, then taught there, 1855-1865, be­com­ing the Aca­de­my’s mu­sic di­rect­or, and or­ga­niz­ing a cor­net band there.

Palm­er lat­er moved to Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois, where he was choir di­rect­or at the Se­cond Bap­tist Church. In ad­di­tion, he pub­lished the mag­a­zine Concordia.

Palmer moved back to New York in 1873, and set up the Church Chor­al Un­ion in 1881. The or­gan­i­za­tion event­u­al­ly grew to 20,000 sing­ers, and per­formed in lo­ca­tions such as Ma­di­son Square Gar­den in New York Ci­ty (where it field­ed a 4,000 mem­ber choir). Palm­er went on to or­gan­ize sim­i­lar groups in New York state, Penn­syl­van­ia, and Wash­ing­ton, DC. In 1877, the Sum­mer School of Mu­sic at Chau­tau­qua, New York, was established, and Palm­er led it for 14 years. He al­so con­duct­ed an­nu­al mu­sic fes­tiv­als in Court­land, New York, and di­rect­ed the choir at the Broome Street Ta­ber­na­cle in New York Ci­ty for 11 years.

Palmer’s works in­clude:

• Theory of Mu­sic
• The Song Queen, 1867 (sold 200,000 co­pies)
• The Song Monarch, 1874
• The Choral Union, 1884

Sources

Hymns

1. Angry Words
2. Have Courage to Say No!
3. Yield Not to Tempta­tion

Music

1. Come Close to the Savior
2. Come, Sinner, Come
3. Master, the Tempest Is Raging
4. Memories of Galilee
5. Silver Star, The
6. Steadily Marching On
7. Vincent
8. Wayside Cross, The