Ralph S. Palmer Collection

Ralph Simon Palmer was born in Richmond, Maine, on June 13, 1914, the son of George Luther Palmer and Marion Brown Holmes Palmer. The Palmer family later moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Ralph attended school, graduating from high school there in 1932. He entered the University of Maine in 1933, where he majored in zoology and graduated in 1937. He entered Cornell University in 1937 and received his Ph.D. in 1940. He taught zoology at Vassar College and in 1949 was appointed a senior scientist on the staff of the New York State Museum and State Science Service. He wrote several books as well as numerous papers and articles on ornithology and mammalogy. He was also the author and editor of the five-volume Handbook of North American Birds series, the first volume of which was published in 1972. In 1978 he was appointed a research associate of the Smithsonian Institution. After his retirement he moved to Tenants Harbor, Maine. In 1981 he was appointed a faculty associate in zoology and forest resources at the University of Maine in Orono. He was married twice: to Eunice Nelson Palmer and to Nancy R. Palmer. He had three children, sons Keith and Douglas and daughter Shirley Palmer Richardson. He died on July 21, 2003. In 1942 Dr. Palmer began a correspondence with Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, expressing in his first letter to her his interest in the natural history of Maine in general and in her father Manly Hardy in particular. He continued to do research and collect material on Manly Hardy for most of the rest of his life, intending to publish a biography of Hardy as a result. Although a draft of the biography appears in the collection, it was never published.

Manly Hardy was born on November 11, 1832, in Hampden, Maine, the only child of Jonathan Titcomb Hardy and Catherine Sears Atwood Hardy. The family moved to Brewer, Maine, when Manly was four, and he remained there for the rest of his life. He became a fur buyer and dealer, maintaining one of the most extensive fur businesses in Maine. He also spent much time in the woods of Maine, acquiring great knowledge of woods lore and spending time with other men familiar with the wilderness. In 1861 he was the assistant naturalist on the Maine State Scientific Survey. He began to mount birds and assembled a collection of some 3,300 U.S. birds. He also wrote extensively about the Maine woods, Indians, and mammals. He married Emmeline Freeman Wheeler on December 24, 1862. They had six children: Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Catherine Atwood Hardy Bates, Annie Eliza Hardy Eckstorm, Manly Willis Hardy, who lived less than two years, and twins Charlotte W. Hardy and Walter M. Hardy. Manly Hardy died on December 9, 1910.

Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, naturalist, historian, folklorist, and writer, was born on June 18, 1865, in Brewer, Maine. She attended Bangor High School, Abbott Academy in Andover, Mass., and graduated from Smith College in 1888. In 1893 she married Rev. Jacob A. Eckstorm of Chicago. They lived in Oregon for a short time and then moved to Providence, R.I., staying there until Jacob Eckstorm's death in 1899. In 1900 she returned to Brewer with her two children and lived there for the rest of her life. She had made many trips to the woods with her father before her marriage, learning from him, meeting lumbermen, hunters and Indians, and keeping journals of her observations. Her interests included Indians and their crafts and language, birds, Maine ballads and folklore. She wrote extensively. She died on December 31, 1946. She had two children: Katharine Hardy Eckstorm, who died in 1901, and Paul Eckstorm, who died in 1943.

Walter M. Hardy, artist, writer, and apple grower, and son of Manly Hardy, was born in Brewer on February 9, 1877. He graduated from Bangor High School in 1896 and spent a year at the University of Maine before transferring to the Art Students League in New York City. After completing courses there he also studied in Paris, England, and Italy. He was interested in birds and other wildlife and after his return to the U.S. did illustrations of birds and animals for various publications. He also illustrated some of the articles written by his father. In 1911 he bought a farm in Holden, Maine, where he planted a large apple orchard. He raised and sold apples there until his death on September 17, 1933.

Jonathan Titcomb Hardy was born about 1805. He was the father of Manly Hardy and the grandfather of Fannie Hardy Eckstorm.