OREGON FOLKLORE - WORK PROJECT ADMINISTRATION
Title: Occupational and Medical Lore

*********************************************************************************
USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE:
************************************************ 
Copyright. All rights reserved. 
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm 
http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm
*********************************************************************************
Transcribed and formatted for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
W. David Samuelsen - May 2002 - NO COPYRIGHT - PUBLIC DOMAIN
************************************************************************

OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES

Name of worker A. C. Sherbert
Subject: Occupational and Medical Lore.
Name and address of informant: Ross M. Plummer, 1202 S. W. Third Street,
Portland, Oregon.
Date and time of interview January 13, 18, [1939], afternoon and evening.
Place of interview Plummer's Drug Store, 1202 S. W. Third Street, Portland
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant
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.
1. Father, O. P. S. Plummer; mother, Martha Kelly Plummer (of the Kelly
family, for whom 'Kelly Butte' was named).
2. San Francisco, California, November 3, 1879. (Mother 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 willing talker.
10. None of value to this work.

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 medica and the contemplation of anatomical charts, to woo and wed a
Missouri girl of long acquaintance. His first matrimonial venture, however,
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 companionship. 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 fascinated 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 telegraphy practically, as well as
theoretically. The miracle of electricity as applied to the slacking
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 wires 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.

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 fathers 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 and 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 called, "contract doctors". My father was a contract doctor.

After the Civil War 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 concerning 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 1880, carried his advertisement, as follows:

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.

Note that the residence was 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 an 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 came to be considered an
authority in the cultivation of the Italian prune. He and Colonel Dosch -
for whom 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 previously 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 discussion of men or issues. He was
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 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, however,
the store was heated by a big wood 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 few years ago, because of a feature article in the Sunday Oregonian
regarding Portland's first telephone and telephone exchange, a spirited
controversy arose over the question of where and by whom the first
telephone instrument 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 accept their
statements as veracious and to believe that my father actually was the
first telephone user in the city of Portland.

Be that as it may, this much I do know: 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 adaptation 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 building 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 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.

Extra 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 hat! 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.