Clarissa Palmer
1785-1835

Bryant Number(s): 28
Type of Memorial: Marble headstone
Stonecarver: The Rev. Thomas Hughes

Inscription:
MRS. CLARISSA PALMER,
died 8 Sept. 1835.
Aged 50 years.
Born in Colchester Ct.
Entered the Missionary
service 1820
To the Osage Indians
8 years.
To the Cherokee 7 Years.
The
Cherokee Female Society
in the vicinity of
Fairfield Station has
erected this Monument
in gratitude to
OPIA

Commentary: Mrs. Clarissa Johnson Palmer is one of the most fascinating characters buried in Granville’s historic graveyard, but she was not a Granvillean. Born and raised in Colchester, Connecticut, she went to Oklahoma at the age of 35 to become a Presbyterian missionary. She worked for 15 years among the Osage and Cherokee Indians, and married a fellow missionary, Dr. Marcus Palmer. Together, they ran a boarding school for Indian children.

Clarissa’s health began to fail in the early 1830s (she may have suffered from the disease then known as “consumption”), and by 1835 she understood that she was dying. It was her wish to return to her home in Connecticut, so she undertook the arduous journey east, making it as far as Granville, where she is said to have had friends. She died in this town in early September 1835, and was buried in the Old Colony Burying Ground. Clarissa’s friends among the Cherokee sponsored the carving of her beautiful marble headstone by a prominent local stonecarver, the Rev. Thomas Hughes. The inscription summarizes her work in the missionary service, and concludes with an obscure reference to “O P I A,” the meaning of which is not understood today.

Sometime pre-1990, Clarissa’s headstone fell and was broken into a number of fragments before the restoration of the Old Colony began in the early 1990s. The stone could not be repaired, so the pieces from the center part of the stone were buried in 1993 on the site of the grave. The top of the stone, with its decorative floral motif, was salvaged along with a bottom section in the sandstone base, and together these pieces mark the grave today. For a photo of the preserved remnants of the stone, see the Find a Grave entry listed here.

Find a Grave link: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10845602/clarissa-palmer