San Francisco County
Biographies
HENRY JOHN PLOMTEAUX, D.
D.
S.
HENRY
JOHN PLOMTEAUX, D. D. S. of Oakland, was born in Milan, Ripley county, Indiana, November 3, 1838, a son of Samuel and Priscilla (Palmer) Plomteaux. Grandfather John Henry Plomteaux
a native of France, who settled on a farm near Syracuse,
New York, and was there married to a native of this country, was
the founder of the family. Grandmother Meribah Ann Plomteaux survived her husband many years, and died in
Winnebago county, Illinois, aged about eighty. They were the parents of two sons
and two daughters, the sons bearing the names of John and Samuel. John died in Minnesota, leaving two sons, who constitute with their children
the only other branch of the Plomteaux family in the United States. Samuel, the father of Dr. Plomteaux,
was born near Syracuse, New York, March 8, 1807,
married October 30, 1827, to Priscilla Palmer, Born in New York State, July 22, 1809, and of a family of six sons and six
daughters, who all lived to be married and to raise families. Some time after marriage Samuel and Priscilla Plomteaux moved to Indiana, settling in Ripley county, and
in 1850 removed to Will county, Illinois, near Joliet, and still later lived for a time in Winnebago county,
in that State, and also near Beloit, Wisconsin. They had three sons and six daughters, of whom Dr. Plomteaux and two sisters still survive. The father died June 14, 1863; the mother September 11, 1865.
H. J. Plomteaux, educated in the district schools of his youth,
began while yet in his ‘teens to learn dentistry under Dr. George S. Spring of
Geneva, Ohio, with whom he set out for California in 1856, coming by way of
Panama. They first went to the mines in Placerville,
El Dorado county,
and met with varying fortune. Mr. Plomteaux followed
that line at intervals until 1859. With such skill in the art of dentistry as
he had acquired from his preceptor, and with such further knowledge of the same
as he had been able to acquire from books by close application, he embarked in
his chosen career in Elk Grove, Sacramento
county, in 1859. He has ever since kept fully abreast
of the great advance made in that eminently progressive profession, and by
close scrutiny as well as practical testing of new devices and methods he
labored to supply the many defects common to the art at the time he first
engaged in its practice. He has thus been enabled to select a method for all
operations upon the natural teeth, which is less wasteful of time and money
while it is also less painful to the patient. He practiced, as stated, at Elk
Grove, then at Sacramento next at Lincoln,
then at Woodland, and since 1875 in
this city and San Francisco. He has
been actively identified with all organized efforts to elevate the standard of
the profession. He served eight years as Secretary of the California State
Dental Association, organized June 29, 1870, and in the same capacity two years
for the California State Odontological Society,
organized December 27, 1884. He was President of the former organization for
the year 1875-6. Generally a member of the Publication Committee, an active
member of the Legislative Committee, and frequently of other committees, he was
always zealous in the promotion of its interests by word and deed. Prominent in
its debates and councils as well as by contributions to the professional press,
he has reached a recognized position in the front rank of the practitioners of
the United States.
He has been a member of the Council for the International Medical Congress,
Dental Section, of the California State Board of Dental Examiners, Professor
and Clinical Instructor in the dental department of the University
of California, and President of the
Alumni Association of the same. Some years ago, when the press of professional
business was not so overwhelming, Dr. Plomteaux was a
frequent contributor in prose and verse to the local press of this State, and
some of his more elaborate compositions found ready acceptance on the pages of
the old Waverly magazine of Boston. He has been an Odd Fellow, a Druid, and
member of several other secret orders, but professional labors have left him no
leisure of late years to attend to the duties of membership in these
organizations. He is, however, still a member of Oakland Lodge, No. 188, F.
& A. M., and of Alameda Chapter, No. 36, R. A. M. He and his immediate family
are also members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Oakland.
Dr. Plomteaux
was married in San Francisco in 1861, to Miss Julia M. Roff,
a native of England, who died in Oakland, November 24, 1881, the mother of
three surviving children: Lenora Evadne, born in
Sacramento March 31, 1863, now Mrs. John Roddin, of
Wheatland; Charles Henry, born in Sacramento, August 8, 1865, married in 1890
to Miss Philomena Carrie Tafaro, a native of Santa
Clara county, of Spanish descent; Daisy Mercedes, born in Oakland, November 11,
1878. Dr. Plomteaux was again married February 13, 1882, to Miss Frederica Spanhacke,
born in New York city
of German parents, who are both living. Her maternal grandmother is also
living, at the age of seventy-seven, hale and hearty. There is living one child
by this marriage, Elbert Carleton, born March 7, 1890.
Transcribed 12-6-05 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Pages 279-280,
Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2005 Marilyn R. Pankey.
California Biography Project
San Francisco County
California Statewide
Golden Nugget Library