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WPA L. C. PROJECT UNIT
Form -3
Collection (or Type)
Title
Place of origin
Project worker
Project editor
editor
Remarks
Date //,/9_,
Form A
Federal Writers/ Project
Circumstances of Interview Works Yrosross Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker A. C. Sherbert
Address
Project Office, Elks Building, Portland.
Subject Occupational and Medical Lore.
Date January 19, 1939
Z..' —2.rsaigs
Name and r?rlres of in'i'orm,Int Ross M. Plummer, 1202 S. W. Third Street.
Portland, Oregon.
Date and time of inte:rview January 13, 1.12._ 17, afternoon and evening.
Place of interview Plummer's Drug Store, 1202 S. W. Third Street.
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant None
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you None
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. Old-fashioned drug store, no
fountain or lunch counter. Old building, slightly run down. Conducted interview
in back room, where; prescriptions are compounded. Sat facing shelves filled with
various drugs in bottles and cans of all sizes and shapes. Clientele seems to be
mostly from the poorer classes. District in which store is located was once
prominent and respectable but is not now very desirable.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
W 13865
Form B
Federal Writers' Project
Personal History of Informant Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKWRE STUDIES
Name of worker A. C. Sherbert
Address Project Off4oe.
Subject
Occupational and Medical Lore.
Date January 19, 1939
Name and address of informant Ross M. Plummer, 1202 S. W. Third Street.
Portland, Oregon.
Information obtained should supply the following facts:
1. Ancestry 6. Occupations and accomplishments with dates
2. Place and date of birth 7. Special skills and interests
3. Family 8. Community and religious activities
4. Places lived in, with dates 9. Description of informant
5. Education, with dates 10. Other points gained in interview
1. Father, O. P. S. Plummer; mother, Martha Kelly Plummer (of the Kelly family,
for wham 'Kelly Butte' was named).
2. San Francisco, California, November 3, 1879. (Mather was visiting in S. F.
at the time of his birth. Spent entire life in Portland).
3. Two daughters.
4. Portland since infancy.
5. Portland Academy. Graduate of U. of O., class of 1903.
6. Druggist and pharmacist no other accomplishments.
7. Interested in gardening.
8. None.
9. Slender, well dressed; professional manner and appearance, and younger looking
than age given; well educated, pleasing and milling talker.
10. None of value to this work.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Form C Federal Writers' Project
Text of Interview (Unedited) Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker A. C. Sherbert Date January 19, 1939.
Address Project Office
Subject Occupational and Medical Lore.
Name and address of informant Ross M. Plummer, 1202 S. W. Third Street,
Portland, Ore&on.
Text:
My father, Dr. O. P. S. Plummer, was born in Missouri and came to Oregon
in 1860, while a young man in his middle twenties. My father seemed to have been
born with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, which trait fitted him for, and
led him into, many fields, each of which he pursued with a great deal of energy.
As a youth he took up the study of medicine and surgery and at what today
would be considered an early age, set himself up in practice as an allopathic
physician. He had not practiced the art of healing long, before he discovered
an alarming lack of uniformity in the manner in which various druggists, or as
they were then called, apothecaries, filled prescriptions. He concluded that
since the ultimate aim of medicine was to render the ailing well, it was of the
utmost importance that the apothecary fill a prescription exactly as prescribed
by the doctor.. With this thought in mind, my father then engaged in the study
of pharmacy and chemistry, quickly attaining a degree of proficiency far beyond
his years.
While still a student of medicine, father took time off from the study
of materia mediaa and the contemplation of anatomical charts, to 1,400 and wed
a Missouri girl of long acquaintance. His first matrimonial venture, however,
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Form C Plummer 2.
proved an unhappy one. The girl of his choice, though a satisfactory sweetheart,
became a jealous, nagging wife who offered him little or no comfort or companion-
ship. After a number of years of constant domestic turmoil, father and his first
wife decided to divorce not a common thing in those days and upon coming to
Oregon, father married an Oregon -born girl, who became my mother.
At about the time my father was a young practicing physician in Missouri,
Samuel Morse's electric telegraph was becoming an increasingly useful and important
new development. A net work of lines was being extended in all directions. My
father, much as he loved his work in medicine, chemistry and pharmacy, was fasci-
nated by this new art, and, with characteristic energy and curiosity, set about
the task of mastering its intricacies. Compounding medicines with a mortar and
pestle in one hand, his other hand held such meager phamplets descriptive of
telegraphic instruments and procedure as were available at the time. He pored
over these books, until shortly he had perfect theoretical knowledge of the
new art. Most professional men would have been satisfied to have ceased further
study of it at this point, but not my father. He WAS determined to know tel-
egraphy practically, as well as theoretically. The miracle of electricity as
applied to the clacking telegraph key and sounder, so absorbed my father that
he felt he could not make of telegraphy a hobby. He knew that he could never
be fully satisfied until he had, for awhile at least, devoted his entire time to
the telegraph. His office and laboratory soon became a jumble of mires and a
storage place for electric batteries, rather than a pharmaceutical workshop
cluttered with bottles, retorts, pipettes and decanters. Few persons understood
telegraphy, so it wasn't long until my father was known throughout Missouri as
an expert and soon his services were in demand. When the Western Union Telegraph
Company thrust their history -making first transcontinental wire through the
Rockies, my father was on the payroll as an installation engineer and operator.
Form C Plummer 3*
When they had completed the line to San Francisco, a line was projected from
San Francisco to Portland, and father participated also in the construction
of this extension. His experiences while helping build these lines through
wild land infested by belligerent Indians, were among the most colorful of
his life. I regret, however, that no single incident of that period, told
to me as a boy, remains vivid enough in my memory for recounting.
The first telegraph coming to Portland, then, brought my father with
it. He became the first Western Union telegrapher and station attendant and
manager, in Portland. One incident of this period I do remember, however, for
as a boy I heard my father tell it many, many times: My father was a staunch
friend and admirer of Henry Pittock, then publisher of the Oregonian. At the
time of Lincoln's assassination there were several daily papers in Portland
and rivalry was keen, each trying to be first with the news. When the shocking
news of Lincoln's murder came over the wire, not a single soul in the city of
Portland knew of it but my father, who took the message from the sounder as it came
into his office. Now this probably was not ethical behavior on the part of my
father, but so anxious was he to give his friend's paper a 'beat' or 'scoop'
that he held back the news of the assassination until the Oregonian could get
ready to set it up sad be the first on the street with it. My father always
considered the incident quite a joke, but it's not likely the rival newspapers
did.
Subsequently tiring of telegraphy, my father returned to his first love
medicine. He established a very lucrative following, comprising most of the
best families of Portland and nearby towns* During the Civil War, men enlisting
for service were given physical examinations by doctors who were not connected
with the military forces. These doctors were paid "so much a head" and were
Form C Plummer 4.
called, "contract doctors". My father was a contract doctor.
After the Civil Aar was over my father began the operation of a drug
store, carrying on this business in conjunction with his medical practice. A
drug store, or apothecary shop, in those days was not the bazaar that it is
today. There were no "double chocolate malteds" in those days, and if one
wanted a ham sandwich he had to ask for one at a restaurant. In those days
a druggist dealt chiefly in drugs, though proprietary, or patent remedies
were beginning to become quite a profitable side line. The old time druggist
kept a supply of leeches always on hand. These he rented out to suffering
citizens whose doctors prescribed that the sufferer be bled. Bleeding with
leeches was considered a veritable panacea for all ills in that day. "Remedies"
is hardly the word to use in describing the patent nostrums of that period.
The purveyors of pills, plasters and poultices of that gullible era made no
half -way boasts concernirc the merits of their respective medicaments. There
were no "remedies". They were all "cures". Consumption (now called T.B.)
cures, rheumatism cures, heart trouble cures, and even cancer cures. Happily,
the passage of stringent drug laws has abolished use of the word "cure".
My father's first drug store was situated on the southwest corner of
First and Main Streets. A mortar and pestle of heroic proportions surmounted
a post in front of the entrance to his shop, calling the passerby's attention
to the fact that a compounding chemist kept shop there. The first Oregon State
Directory, published in l_880, carried his advertisement, as followst
O.P.S. Plummer, M.D.
Proprietor of Drug Store southwest corner First and
Main streets. His residence is southeast corner of
Third and Madison. He can usually be found at the
Drug Store during business hours.
Form C Plummer 5.
Note that the residence WSA at the southeast corner of Third and
Madison Streets. This was the old home, where I spent my childhood, and
was razed in 1891 to make way for the building which my father erected on
the property in that year. The building has been continuously occupied by
the Plummer drug store first by my father, and later by myself.
My father's medical practice and other enterprises made him a man
of considerable means, but he was never 'sporty' or given to 'show'. In the
'eighties and 'nineties it was quite the regular think for persons financially
successful to own and drive fine horses and personal carriages. My father,
however, to my knowledge never invested a penny in any such display. His
hobby was fruit raising and he cane to be considered an authority in the culti-
vation of the Italian prune. He and Colonel Dosch for wham Dosch Road is
named jointly operated a fruit farm southwest of town. Colonel Dosch and
my father are credited with introducing the Italian prune to Oregon where pre-
viously only the French Petite prune had been grown to any extent. Aside from
fruit raising, my father's principal interest centered around politics. He was
an ardent Republican and liked nothing better than to take part in any dis-
cussion of men or issues. He VAS a member of the State Legislature in the 70's,
representing Multnomah County. In the 80's he was a member of Portland's city
council. He was a member of Oregon's first State Board of Medicine. He was
Dean of Portland Medical College and for many years was medical examiner for
the Federal Pension Board. Though of an earlier generation and of a different
political stripe, my father was a close personal friend of Dr. Harry Lane, who
later became Mayor of Portland. Lane did not become mayor until my father was
in his declining years. Lane's administration was a hectic one marked by many
bitter political battles, and, though he counted his friends by thousands, he
Form C Plummer 6.
incurred undying enmity of a great many influential Portland people. During
the trying episodes of Lane's administration, my father stood staunchly by
Lane's side, believing him an honest, fearless, trustworthy public servant
even though a Democrat.
The present Plummer drug store, which is the same brick building my
father built in 1891, now has a central heating system. In early days, how-
ever, the store was heated by a big mood burning heater. As a boy, I never
remember having seen the store deserted on a winter day. Gathered around the
stove at all times could be found aging telegraphers, Civil War veterans,
stagecoach drivers, pony expressmen and steamboat men from as far. away as the
Cowlitz river country. The telegraphers made it their headquarters because my
father talked their language. The Civil War veterans made it their headquarters
because my father was on the Federal Pension Board. The others made it their
headquarters because they liked my father and because the stove was hot.
A fay( years ago, because of a feature article in the Sunday Oregonian
regarding Portland's first telephone and telephone exchange, a spirited con-
troversy arose over the question of where and by whom the first telephone instru-
ment in Portland was installed. Personally, I had no part in the argument,
primarily because I knew little or nothing about it except by hearsay. However,
Colonel C. E. S. Wood, and George Hines, Curator of the Oregon Historical Society,
insisted that my father installed in his office the first telephone to come to
Portland. Others claimed that the first instrument was installed in the office
of the Woodward and Clark Drug Company. Who will ultimately gain indisputable
claim to the honor I do not know, however, since Colonel Wood and George Hines
were close observers of the Portland scene at that time, I am naturally inclined
to aocept their statements as veracious and to believe that my father actually
was the first telephone user in the city of Portland.
Form C Plummer 7.
Be that as it may, this much I do knew: When my father gave up
telegraphy as an occupation and returned to medical practice the Western
Union installed a "courtesy instrument" in his office. Thus while my father
examined a patient and listened to a recital of symptoms with one ear, he had
his other ear cocked to hear what interesting bits of intelligence came over the
Western Union wire. When Bell's telephone became a reality, my father installed
one, attaching it to the wires of the telegraph company. Obviously, the nature
of a telephone being what it is, there must have been two "firsts". Since my
father's instrument was in connection with the Western Union office, and since
the Western Union Telegraph Company was a national institution rather than an
individual, I contend it is logical to eliminate them from consideration as a
"first" Portland telephone user. Since my father was so well versed in the
mechanics of telegraphy, and the early telephone was an uncomplicated adapt-
ation of the telegraph, knowing my father's bent for experimentation with
telegraphic innovations it seems plausible and highly probable that he should
have been the first private individual in Portland to install a telephone.
My father's office the building in which the first telephone was
installed is a small frame store building which faces on Madison street, and
is situated directly behind my present drug store building. As mentioned before,
the brick drug store building was built on the site of our old home. The little
frame building which my father used as an office was situated on the end of our
lot in our backyard, you might say. If you are interested in pioneer Portland
business architecture, the building still stands, quite as my father built it,
and is at present occupied by a lady barber shop. The only change in the build-
ing since it was erected by my father was the installation of plate glass
windows. In the early days only ordinary glass was in use. The little building
Form C Plummer 8.
is typical of modest Portland business places of seventy-five years ago. I know
of no other structure in Portland that is quite so old and I have frequently
wondered why this building excites so little interest on the part of those
interested in historic Portland buildings.
Form D Federal Writers/ Project
Extra Comment Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker AL C. Sherbert
Address PE2lect Office
Subject Occupational and Medical Lore
,Date January 19, 1.939.
Name and address of informant Ross M. Plummer, 1202 S. W. Third Street,
Portland, Oregon.
Comment:
At the rear of the Plummer drug store is an ornate, old fashioned
partition which screens the back room from the store proper. On this partition
there hangs a picture of old Dr. Plummer, about whom the text is written. While
I WAS interviewing Ross Plummer, an elderly doctor came into the store to cash
a check and to buy some sleeping tablets. He was obviously in a state of high
intoxication. While Plummer cashed the check the elderly doctor, a Scandinavian,
took off his hat reverently and stood in front of old Doctor Plummer's picture.
He began to cry, became maudlin, tears ran down his cheeks, "Dar vas a man," he
cried. "Oh my Gott I luffed dot man. He vas der best docktor Portland effer
hadt." Then he turned to me, and noticing that I still had my hat on, he
angrily commanded me to "Take off dot heti Who in de Hell do you tink you are to
stand in front dot man's picture mit your hat on?" I didn't take my hat off so
he grasped me roughly by the arm and I believe would have removed it for me had
I not taken my hat off to humor him before he could try to. Ross Plummer quieted
the drunken doctor and in friendly manner urged him to go home.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).