Joseph Palmer is best known for his membership in
Amos Bronson Alcott’s
Fruitlands community, which he joined in August 1843 and remained with until its demise. He was a farmer and a butcher and preferred to wear a beard in a society that was not only intolerant but openly hostile to facial hair. He had even spent time in prison for defending his right to wear a beard. After Fruitlands failed, Palmer bought the property and formed another utopian community there with
Charles Lane, receiving visits from time to time by
Ralph Waldo Emerson.