Mrs. Mary Palmer Shindler, poet and novelist, was born at Beaufort,
South Carolina, February 15, 1810. She was the daughter of Dr.
Benjamin M. Palmer, the celebrated Presbyterian preacher of New
Orleans. She was educated in Charleston by the daughter of Dr. David
Ramsey, the early historian of South Carolina. Her education was
completed in the schools of Connecticut and New Jersey. In 1835 Miss
Palmer was married to Charles E. Dana of New York; and in 1848 to Rev.
Robert D. Shindler, an Episcopal clergyman. Two years after this
marriage they removed to Maryland, and then to Shelbyville, Kentucky,
where Dr. Shindler held a professorship in Shelby College. Shelbyville
was Mrs. Shindler's home henceforth, save for short sojourns in other
states, and in that town she died about 1880. She was the author of
_The Southern Harp_ (1840); _The Northern Harp_ (1841); _The Parted
Family and Other Poems_ (1842); _The Temperance Lyre_ (1842); _Charles
Morton, or the Young Patriot_ (1843); _The Young Sailor_ (1844);
_Forecastle Tour_ (1844); and, _Letters to Relatives and Friends on
the Trinity_ (1845). Several of Mrs. Shindler's lyrics are well known.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New
York, 1888, v. v); _The Writers of South Carolina_, by George A.
Wauchope (Columbia, South Carolina, 1910).