Swante Palm

Before Texas, Palm had been a clerk at the Göta Court of Appeals in Jönköping and, from 1838 to 1844, a clerk in the sheriff's court at Kalmar and editor of the newspaper Kalmar Posten. He was La Grange postmaster from 1847 to 1850. Proslavery but against secession, he stayed neutral through the Civil War. He worked as meteorologist for the first Texas Geological and Agricultural Survey from 1858 to 1860, was Austin postmaster from 1869 to 1872, and in the 1870s recruited Swedes as agent of the American Emigrant Company.

What the plaque says

Swante Palm (January 31, 1815 - June 22, 1899) A native of Basthult, Barkeryd Parish, in the province of Smaland, Sweden, Swante Palm was a leader of early Swedish immigration to Texas. Influenced by his nephew, Swen Magnus Swenson, Palm came to Texas in 1844. He settled first in La Grange, where he served as postmaster and worked in Swenson's general store. Both men moved to Austin in 1850 and continued their business relationship. In 1854 Palm married Agnes Christine Alm. Their son, Swante Sture, was born in 1855, but died in infancy. Politically active, Palm held a number of public offices, including Travis County justice of the peace, alderman, and postmaster. As vice consul to Texas for Sweden and Norway, he was instrumental in bringing thousands of Swedish immigrants to the state. In 1868 he was one of the organizers of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church (now Gethsemane Lutheran Church) in Austin. Swedish king Oscar II knighted Palm in 1884 for his service to Sweden and Texas' Swedish immigrants. A devoted book collector, Palm amassed a large library which he donated to the University of Texas in 1897, increasing its holdings by over sixty percent. An Austin school was later named in his honor. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.4 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• Texas State Cemetery — 0.6 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 0.7 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• Andrew Jackson Hamilton — steps away
• John Crittenden Duval — steps away
• Abner Hugh Cook — steps away
• Susanna W. Dickinson — steps away