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
• Life-Time Hymns, with C. C. Mc­Cabe & M. R. Brouse (Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois: R. R. Mc­Cabe & Co., 1896)

• Brown, p. 311
• Hall, pp. 87-95
• Jones, pp. 127-8
• Nutter, p. 462

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

1. Bethlehem’s Star
2. Bethlehem Babe, The
3. By and By
4. Come Close to the Savi­or
5. Come, Sin­ner, Come
6. Hark! the Voice of Je­sus Call­ing
7. Master, the Tem­pest Is Rag­ing
8. Memories of Ga­li­lee
9. See! From the Morn­ing Land
10. Silver Star, The
11. Steadily March­ing On
12. Vincent
13. Wayside Cross, The