OLIVER PLUMMER

 

Oliver Plummer, a rancher of Cosumnes Township, was born in Yates County, New York, November 26, 1829, his parents being William and Delilah (Fitzsimmons) Plummer. The family moved to Illinois in 1844. The father, a native of Pennsylvania, lived to be seventy-six, and the mother to be seventy-four. Grandfather George Plummer, a native of New Jersey and a Revolutionary soldier, lived to the age of ninety-one, and his wife, Hannah McMurtrie, reached ninety. Receiving a limited education in the district schools, Oliver worked on his father’s farm until he set out for California. Crossing the plains, he arrived in Sacramento September 20, 1852, and went to teaming with the two horses he had driven to Illinois. After eight months he opened a miners’ store on Dry Creek, near Drytown in Amador County, which he carried on about three years. Mr. Plummer was married at Cosumnes May 18, 1856, to Miss Mary L. Wilson, born in South Bend, Indiana, September 8, 1839, her parents being William D. and Elizabeth (Garver) Wilson, both natives of Ohio. The father was born April 3, 1810, and the mother in 1813. They left Indiana for California in 1847, but wintered in Missouri, and in 1848 resumed their journey. The father was captain of the emigrant train. On the way they heard from returning Mormons of the discovery of gold in California. Mr. Wilson and part of the company concluded to seek the land of gold, while others kept to the original design of going to Oregon. On his arrival Mr. Wilson mined for a short time on Mormon Island and then moved to Hangtown, now Placerville, where in the winter of 1848-’49 he built the first house erected in that place. The family then comprised six children; five more were born in California; nine grew to maturity and seven are living in 1889. In the spring of 1850 he moved down on the Cosumnes and purchased 6,000 acres of the Hartnell Grant, and built a tavern, long known as Wilson’s Exchange, across the river from what is now the Cosumnes post office. He was postmaster from the establishment of that office until 1868. He was by trade a millwright and built the first suspension bridge on the Cosumnes. In 1868 he sold out his ranch and hotel and moved to Gilroy, Santa Clara County, where he died November 22, 1869. His widow, by her second marriage, Mrs. W.A. Angel, died at Los Angeles July13, 1877. Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Plummer rented Wilson’s Exchange in 1857 and carried on the tavern business for three years. Mr. Plummer also rented some 600 acres from his father-in-law and went into cattle-raising and general farming, in which he continued until 1870, after the place had been sold by Mr. Wilson. In 1871 he bought 230 acres about three miles higher up on the Cosumnes, where he still resides, and of which about 100 acres are bottom land. He does general farming, and makes a specialty of corn and alfalfa on the home place. He also owns 280 acres below Sebastopol and rents 2,000 acres, as sheep range, of which he usually keeps about 2,500 head. Mr. and Mrs. Plummer have two daughters and one son: Mary Emma, born November 13, 1857, and Alma May, born December 24, 1862. These fondly cling to the homestead, a help and comfort to their parents. The son, Harry William, born April 3, 1860, was married at San Jose January 1, 1884, to Miss Annie Fischer, born in New York, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fischer. They have two children: Oliver Christian, born September 28, 1884, and Gertrude, born July 28, 1886, who are equally at home with their grandparents on the Cosumnes or their parents in Sacramento.