William was born on January 4, 1794 in New York. He was the son of (Capt.) Edmund and Sarah Palmer. He married Juliet Palmer, born about 1807, daughter of Capt. Nathaniel (then deceased) and Mercy Palmer on March 31, 1825 in Stonington CT. Their only known child was Sarah (Fanning) Bradford. William died at sea on March 22, 1826. The New London Gazette (March 22, 1826) records that he died on board the brig BUNKER HILL during a passage from Cartagena to New York and that he was the only son of Capt. Edmund Fanning of Stonington. His gravestone (found in Find A Grave) is located in Robinson Burying Ground in Stonington. The text of the engraving on his stone reads: “In memory of Capt. William A. Fanning who died at sea on board Brig Bunker Hill February 26, 1826, aged 52 years.” Beneath that text is the following quotation: “The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one, he lies where pearls lie deep, he was the loved of all, yet none o’er his low grave may weep”. Juliet died on August 23, 1845 at age 37. Her gravestone is in the same cemetery near but not adjacent to William’s.
Records of the Daughters of the American Revolution show that their daughter Sarah Bradford, like her Palmer mother and grandfather, was a descendant of Nathaniel Palmer “[who] was a volunteer from Stonington on the Lexington Alarm and marched to the relief of Boston.”
William was master of only one voyage on ship with New London as home port:
ALABAMA PACKET (AS0831): (brig, 168 tons, length 79’, built in Groton CT in 1819). It sailed in 1821 for the “So. Seas” and returned on June 18, 1823. AOWV characterizes this voyage as “sealing”; Colby shows it on his list of “fur-sealing” vessels, with a note that it “hailed from Stonington”. The Connecticut Ship Database records this ship in the “coasting trade.” Neither Decker nor Starbuck show this voyage, perhaps because it was sealing, not whaling, and in Decker’s case because he may have considered it from Stonington, not New London. AV00370. Mystic Seaport Museum holds the logbook for this voyage.
No record could be found of other ships on which William served as master or crew member.
William was issued Citizen Affidavit of US-born Seamen #3092 in New York on March 11, 1824.
AOWV records that William’s father, Capt. Edmund, was master of SEA FOX (AS2367: ship, home port New York NY) on a sealing voyage from 1817-1818. Colby writes (p. 56) that Edmund “made a fortune in Stonington’s specialty – hunting seals in the Falkland Islands and in other South Atlantic waters”. Caulkins writes (footnote, p. 307) that during a sealing voyage in 1797-1799 in BETSEY Edmund “discovered several islands near the equator, not before laid down on any chart. They are known as Fanning’s Islands.” Edwin H. Bryan’s American Polynesia and the Hawaiian Chain writes (p. 27) that Edmund “in the American ship Betsy, discovered Fanning Island June 11, 1798, Washington Island June 12, and nearly ran on a reef June 14…” Bryan describes Fanning as a coral atoll about 10 miles by 6 miles lying 228 miles north of the Equator at longitude 159.20. It is known locally as Tabuaeran (“heavenly footprint”) and is now part of the island nation of Kiribati.
Sources used: see sidebar and sources cited in text. Also, Caulkins, History of New London.
George Shaw
American Institute for Maritime Studies
Mystic Seaport Museum
July 2025