{{short description|American politician (1836–1913)}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Orlando Plummer | image = Orlando P S Plummer.png | image_size = 175px | caption = Plummer circa 1910 | office = Member of the Oregon House of Representatives | term = 1880–1885 | constituency = Multnomah County | nominator = | appointer = | predecessor = | successor = | office2 = Member of the Portland City Council | constituency2 = Portland, Oregon | term_start2 = 1865 | term_end2 = 1866 | nominator2 = | appointer2 = | predecessor2 = | successor2 = | birth_date = April 13, 1836 | birth_place = Greenville, Pennsylvania | death_date = {{death date and age|1913|12|7|1836|4|13}} | death_place = Portland, Oregon | party = Republican | alma_mater = Jefferson Medical College | spouse = Sarah B. Cool (1859)<br> Martha Elizabeth Kelly (1874) }}
'''Orlando Pleasant Shields Plummer''' (April 13, 1836 – December 7, 1913) was an American physician and politician in the state of Oregon. A native of Pennsylvania, he started practicing medicine in Illinois before moving to Portland, Oregon. In Oregon, he continued his medical work as well as working for several telegraph companies. A Republican, Plummer was also a member of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, a medical professor, fruit farmer, and Portland city council member. His drug store in downtown had the first telephone in Portland.
==Early life== Orlando Pleasant Shields Plummer (often O.P.S. Plummer) was born in Greenville, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, on April 13, 1836, to Elizabeth (née Craig) and John Boyd Plummer.<ref name=Oregon>Corning, Howard M. (1989) ''Dictionary of Oregon History''. Binfords & Mort Publishing. p. 199.</ref><ref name=pdx>''Portrait and Biographical Record of Portland and Vicinity, Oregon. Containing Original Sketches of Many Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present''. Chicago: Chapman Pub. Co., (1903). p. 786-8.</ref> His grandfather on his mother’s side was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War.<ref name=dar>[https://books.google.com/books?id=a5pDy6a-wpgC&pg=PA266 ''Lineage book''.] Daughters of the American Revolution, (1890). p. 266.</ref> Plummer received his early education at the local public schools and at the Greenville Academy.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=pdx/> He then was employed as an assistant at the local telegraph office, which led to additional jobs working for the telegraph company in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland.<ref name=pdx/> Plummer continued in this line of work at an office in Rock Island, Illinois, where his brother S. C. Plummer was a doctor.<ref name=pdx/>
Orlando read medicine from his brother before he returned to his native Pennsylvania to enter medical school.<ref name=pdx/> He attended school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia where he graduated in 1857 with a Doctor of Medicine.<ref name=Oregon/> Plummer returned to Illinois and practiced medicine in the communities of Aledo and Moline from 1858 to 1863.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=pdx/> In 1859, he married Sarah B. Cool with whom he had three daughters, with the marriage ending in divorce.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=pdx/><ref name=dar/> One daughter married Claude Gatch, one-time mayor of Salem, Oregon.<ref name=pdx/> In 1863, Plummer took the Oregon Trail to California to continue working for the telegraph company, traveling by mule team.<ref name=pdx/> He spent the winter of 1863 to 1864 working in a telegraph office there before receiving a promotion.<ref name=pdx/>
==Oregon== Plummer was promoted to manager of the Portland, Oregon, office of the California State Telegraph Company.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=pdx/> He arrived on April 9, 1864, and became the first interstate telegraph operator in the city.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=pdx/> In the fall of 1866 he resigned from the company and moved south to Albany to resume practicing medicine.<ref name=pdx/> After two years Plummer returned to working in the telegraph industry, now for Western Union, who had purchased Plummer’s former employer.<ref name=pdx/> He was hired as the superintendent for their Oregon district, and served in that position from 1868 to 1875.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=pdx/>
During his time as superintendent, he began teaching at the Willamette University College of Medicine in Salem.<ref name=pdx/> Plummer taught hygiene and medical electricity for three years at the school.<ref name=pdx/> In 1874, he married Martha Elizabeth Kelly, daughter of Rev. Albert Kelly Rev. Albert Kelly and niece of Clinton Kelly and aunt of Penumbra Kelly.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=nwda>Wexler, Geoff. [http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv36606 Guide to the Kelly Family Papers.] Northwest Digital Archives, 2006. Retrieved on February 28, 2009.</ref> Martha was fourteen years younger than Orlando, and they had five children; Grace, Agnes, Ross, Hildegarde, and Marion.<ref name=pdx/><ref name=nwda/> Land that constitutes Albert Kelly Park in Portland was gifted by Hildegarde in 1956.<ref>{{cite web|title=Albert Kelly Park|url=http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/finder/index.cfm?PropertyID=48&action=ViewPark|work=Parks & Recreation|publisher=City of Portland|accessdate=12 November 2012}}</ref>
In 1877, Plummer returned to Portland to practice medicine and opened a drug store at First and Salmon streets in what is today Downtown Portland.<ref name=pdx/> Willamette University’s medical program moved to Portland in 1879 and Plummer returned to teaching at the school .<ref name=pdx/> He was the first dean of the school, and also taught materia medica and therapeutics.<ref name=pdx/><ref name=scott>Scott, Harvey W. 1890. [https://books.google.com/books?id=UsKKpvOVRRUC ''History of Portland, Oregon with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Prominent Citizens and Pioneers''.] Syracuse, N.Y.: D. Mason & Co. pp. 199, 357, 400.</ref> Plummer left the school after three years to concentrate on his drug store.<ref name=pdx/> He bought a new home in 1881, and remodeled the building.<ref name=pdx/> In 1891, he relocated the store to Third and Madison, and his store became the home of the first telephone in the city.<ref name=Oregon/>
Plummer was a member of the United States Examining Surgeons, serving as the secretary of the board on several occasions.<ref name=pdx/> He also helped found the State Medical Society of Oregon and was later appointed by Governor Sylvester Pennoyer to the newly created State Board of Medical Examiners.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=pdx/> Plummer spent some time as a professor at the University of Oregon’s medical school, located in Portland.<ref name=Oregon/> That school and the Willamette medical college were merged in 1913 and later became Oregon Health & Science University.
==Political career== In 1865, Plummer entered politics and was elected as a city council member for Portland.<ref name=scott/> He served one term on the council, from 1865 to 1866.<ref name=scott/> In 1880, he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives from Multnomah County (where Portland is located) as a Republican in District 41.<ref>[https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/records/legislators_guide.aspx Oregon Legislators and Staff Guide: 1880 Regular Session (11th).] Oregon State Archives. Retrieved on March 1, 2009.</ref> He won re-election to a second two-year term in 1882, but represented District 39 during that session.<ref>[https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/records/legislators_guide.aspx Oregon Legislators and Staff Guide: 1882 Regular Session (12th).] Oregon State Archives. Retrieved on March 1, 2009.</ref> He only served during the 1880 and 1882 legislative sessions. Plummer also served as chairman of the Republicans' city and county conventions for one year.<ref name=pdx/>
==Later years and legacy== Plummer was a horticulturalist and owned a {{convert|20|acre|m2|adj=on}} fruit farm that was then southwest of Portland.<ref name=Oregon/><ref name=pdx/> There he introduced the Italian prune to the state.<ref name=Oregon/> In 1865, he helped found the First Presbyterian Church and Society of the City of Portland.<ref name=scott/> Plummer was an elder at the church for decades, and also helped organize another Presbyterian Church in South Portland.<ref name=pdx/> He was a member of the Masons and of the Al Kader Temple.<ref name=pdx/> Orlando Plummer died on December 7, 1913, in Portland at the age of 77.<ref name=Oregon/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[https://books.google.com/books?id=mOHT9nx7ogIC&pg=PA49 ''Pen Pictures of Representative Men of Oregon''] *[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ormultno/Stories/wpa/plummer.htm Occupational and Medical Lore: Ross Plummer] *[https://books.google.com/books?id=bG4UAAAAYAAJ&dq=OPS+Plummer&pg=PA356 ''Portland, Oregon, Its History and Builders'']
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plummer, Orlando}} Category:1836 births Category:1913 deaths Category:People from Greenville, Pennsylvania Category:Politicians from Mercer County, Pennsylvania Category:Politicians from Rock Island, Illinois Category:Politicians from Albany, Oregon Category:Republican Party members of the Oregon House of Representatives Category:Thomas Jefferson University alumni Category:Portland City Council members (Oregon) Category:Willamette University faculty Category:Oregon Health & Science University faculty Category:19th-century members of the Oregon Legislative Assembly