Los Angeles County
Biographies
EUGENE RAFAEL PLUMMER
Eugene R.
Plummer, of Hollywood, is a native Californian
whose personal recollections go back to the romantic Spanish days on the
Pacific coast and whose people arrived in California before the discovery of gold
here. He was born in San
Francisco, January 8, 1853, his parents being Captain John
Cornelius and Maria Cecilia (McGuire) Plummer, both natives of Canada. Captain John C. Plummer, of English ancestry,
was a seafaring man who in 1847 arrived in San Francisco, where he resided for a number
of years, seeing that community grow into a metropolis
from the deluge of gold seekers who came from all parts of the world after
1848. He left a memorandum book, now
carefully preserved by his son Eugene, which throws light on many of the
historic circumstances of the early days.
One of the items is as follows: “I have known Oregon apples to sell for four dollars
apiece.” In 1851, and the San Francisco
post office on Clay Street, a great crowd would gather to await the opening of
the mail. A long line would form, and
Captain Plummer recorded that it was not an infrequent practice for someone in
the line to sell his place for any sum from five to fifteen dollars. Many times he stood in the excited throng
that awaited the arrival of vessels from down the coast. Other side-lights on high prices included the
information that potatoes sold for a dollar and a quarter per pound. In 1857 Captain Plummer paid twenty-five
dollars a sack for potatoes, which six months later sold for fifty cents per
sack. He dug his first gold with John
Marshall, near Marshall Place,
in 1850.
About the time of
the close of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln, Captain
Plummer decided to leave California and went south with his family to Sonora,
Mexico, buying a hacienda at Mazatlan.
Trouble overtook the family there, however, for shortly after their
removal to Mexico
the revolution headed by the Austrian Archduke Maximilian collapsed and
hundreds of his followers were executed or became refugees.
Early in 1867 the
Plummer family came to Los Angeles and a few
years later established their home in Cahuenga
Valley, now Hollywood.
In this vicinity Captain Plummer took up a thousand-acre ranch whereon
he engaged in the raising of cattle, sheep and horses. He died here about 1920 aged eighty-six
years.
Eugene Rafael
Plummer, the immediate subject of this review, was about twelve years of age
when he accompanied his parents on their removal to Mexico. Up to that time he had attended school in San Francisco. During the period of his residence on the
site of Hollywood,
covering more than sixty years, he has witnessed the transformation of the
broad ranchos, with their old-time hospitality, into the modern film metropolis
of the world. Of the original thousand
acres of the Plummer ranch only eight acres now remain in possession of the
family, constituting one of the most charming spots in Hollywood, and around
the home are many trees that were planted by E. R. Plummer more than a half
century ago. It is a fact worthy of note
that Mr. Plummer was formerly the owner of the famous Hollywood Rose Bowl.
In 1881 Mr.
Plummer married Miss Maria Amparo Lamoraux, a French girl who lived on the Los
Feliz Rancho. One of the two children
born to them died in infancy. The
surviving daughter is Frances E., the wife of Edmund Ontiveros, of Santa Maria, California,
and mother of one child, Amparito, who married Ted Ontiveros and they have two
children, Eugene and Dolores. Mrs.
Plummer died in 1928. Mr. Plummer is a
member of Hollywood Parlor N. S. G. W.
He organized and is teaching traditions, customs, dress, manners and
folk lore of the Spanish days of California,
and incidentally correcting many mistakes of California history. The name of the organization is Ala
California. He has accumulated a vast
amount of historical data of early California. He was official court interpreter for over
thirty years.
Transcribed by Bill Simpkins.
Source: California of the South
Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 255-256, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 Bill Simpkins.
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