D.D. Palmer (drawing by Bruce Walters)
“All his thinking was off the beaten path; he took the side roads; he wandered alone into the jungle, cut down virgin forests and beat out a new road.” – B. J. Palmer, on his father Daniel David (D. D.) Palmer
At the crest of Brady Street Hill are monumental busts of the founder and developers of the Palmer College of Chiropractic. At their center is an imposing bronze with these words: “Dr. Daniel David Palmer, Discover and Founder, 1845-1913.”
Palmer was born in a small community near Toronto, Canada, in 1845. He sought “knowledge about anything and everything, but singularly interested in anatomy. That interest he showed in collecting bones of animals.” (“D. D. Palmer’s Lifeline,” by Dr. Joseph Keating).
At the end of the Civil War, he came to eastern Iowa. He taught in one-room country schoolhouses in Muscatine, Louisa, and Mercer counties for several years before purchasing 10 acres near New Boston, Illinois, to supplement his income as a teacher. With his first wife Abba, he developed the land into an apiary and raspberry farm. He sold Sweet Home Honey and developed the Sweet Home Raspberry, his own variety of raspberries.
While in New Boston, Palmer began to attend meetings at the home of influential spiritualist William Drury. His interest in spiritualism led to the next turn in his life: a nine-year career as a magnetic healer. He set up his practice in the Ryan Block at Second and Brady Streets in Davenport, renting several rooms on the second and third floors. Eventually, his practice would grow to occupy the entire fourth floor of the building.
Though successful, he had his critics. An article in the May 13, 1894 issue of the Davenport Leader began, “DR. PALMER: A crank on magnetism, has a crazy notion that he can cure the sick and crippled by his magnetic hands. His victims are the weak-minded, ignorant, and superstitious, those foolish people who have been sick for years and have become tired of the regular physician and want health by a short-cut method.”
One year later, Harvey Lillard, a deaf janitor, had his hearing restored by Palmer with two spinal adjustments. As Palmer stated, “In that first adjustment, was the principle from which I developed the science of Chiropractic.”
Lillard testified in the January 1897 issue of The Chiropractic, “I was deaf 17 years and I expected to always remain so, for I had doctored a great deal without any benefit. I had long ago made up my mind to not take any more ear treatments, for it did me no good. Last January Dr. Palmer told me that my deafness came from an injury in my spine. This was new to me; but it is a fact that my back was injured at the time I went deaf. Dr. Palmer treated me on the spine; in two treatments I could hear quite well.”
In the following years, Palmer created the world’s first chiropractic school. His son B. J. would be among the first students to graduate in 1902. The school was transferred to his son shortly afterward when D. D. moved to the west coast to found other Chiropractor schools. Palmer died of typhoid fever in Los Angeles in 1913 at the age of 69.
On the back of his bust at the top of Brady Street hill are the words, “Herein rest the ashes of Daniel David Palmer.” In 1981, his remains were removed from the statue’s base and placed in the family crypt in the mausoleum in Oakdale Memorial Gardens.
Daniel David Palmer was an American original: a teacher, businessman, spiritualist, and seeker who developed a holistic understanding of life, “The universe is composed of the invisible and visible, spirit and matter. Life is but the expression of spirit thru matter. To make life manifest requires the union of spirit and body.”
Bruce Walters is a Professor Emeritus in Art conferred by Western Illinois University.
This is part of an occasional series on famous (or infamous) people buried in cemeteries in the Quad Cities, and their history that is not so well-known today. If there’s a piece of history buried here that you’d like to learn more about, e-mail the location and a brief description to BD-Walters@wiu.edu.
