Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
A view of two caucasian men dressed as cowboys on horseback and playing billiards in the home of Eugene R. Plummer. The pool table is in front and the horses behind and on the wall behind them is a mounted deer head.
photCL Pierce 04382
Visual Materials
Group portrait of the Eugene Plummer family in front of an adobe building with an American flag flying . Two members of the group are playing instruments and two are on horseback.
photCL Pierce 07783
Visual Materials
A view of a stage with several couples in Spanish costume dancing with musicians on the right and other dancers in the rear.
photCL Pierce 01354
Visual Materials
A man and a woman doing the Spanish Hat Dance with musicians and a large audience behind.
photCL Pierce 01403
Image not available
Manuscripts
Two diaries kept by Charles Plummer, one while he was traveling from Boston to San Francisco in 1849 and one while he was sailing from Boston to Brazil in 1863-1864. The 1849 diary begins with Plummer's preparations to leave Boston and his joining of the New England and California Trading and Mining Association. He departed from Boston on the ship Lenore in February 1849 and while on board recorded notes on brigs he has seen (including his tracking of the brig Charlotte), a minstrel's concert on board, his stop at the Port of Talcahuana (Chile), and notes on the flying fish and birds he has seen, including the capture of an albatross. He also writes of difficulties with the Association, noting that various members had been tried on board for "deception, falsehood, neglect of duty, intemperance &c." In July the Lenore put down anchor near Benicia and Plummer was chosen to join a "pioneer party to the mines" which traveled up the Sacramento River to the Feather River and set up a "gold washer." The trip was ultimately disappointing, and things did not improve upon the party's return to the Lenore, where on September 10 "a mutiny...result[ed] in the dissolution of our company." In November the Lenore was sold and Plummer stayed for a few months in San Francisco, which was "truly a dark time," as his companion Morris had dysentery and Plummer suffered from a "bad cough [and] two very sore fingers." He wrote that their only opportunity for the winter might be to "go to the mines," which he hoped to avoid at all costs. In December Plummer came down with dysentery and began taking opium pills, and made few further entries in the diary until he gave it up completely on December 18.
Visual Materials
A view of a man and a woman dancing with 5 musicians in the front.
photCL Pierce 01390
mssHM 75054-75055