By Anne Cuyler Salsich
Title: Edward B. Plumb Papers, 1854-1979, undated
Predominant Dates:1854-1862
ID: RG 30/070
Primary Creator: Plumb, Edward B. (1822-1869)
Extent: 0.2 Linear Feet
Date Acquired: 01/24/1973. More info below under Accruals.
Subjects: United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives
Forms of Material: certificates, ephemera - printed ephemera, letters (correspondence), photographs--cartes-de-visite, publications
Languages: English
Edward Brock Plumb was born in 1822 to Theron and Harriet Plumb in Trumbull County, Ohio. He was the brother of Ralph Plumb (1816-1903), a participant in the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of September 13, 1858. (This was Oberlin’s defining anti-slavery activist event that led to a well-publicized trial in Cleveland in 1859.) Edward Plumb married Elizabeth Shatto (1824-1860); they had three children from 1847 to 1860. After her death he married Isabel Mills (1843-1910).
Edward Plumb volunteered for service in the Civil War at Davenport, Iowa as a sergeant from Washington County, Ohio in August 1861; he was mustered into service as a First Lieutenant in Company C of the 8th Regiment of Iowa Volunteers in February 1862. He corresponded with his second wife, Isabel, during his service. He served in Missouri in 1861, where he spent time in the 4th Street Hospital in St. Louis with a case of dysentery. In 1862 he was in camp at Sedalia, Missouri, and then was transported up the Tennessee River to Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee. He resigned on June 23rd of that year.
Edward and Isabel Plumb had three children, all of whom attended Oberlin College: Grace (Mrs. F.L.) Munson, enrolled 1884-89 (1863-1905); Glenn E. Plumb, Class of 1891 (1866-1922); and Mary (Mrs. Allan F.) Millikan, Literary degree, 1893 (born 1868 in Hartford, MO; died in Oberlin, 1956).
Edward Plumb died on March 13, 1869 in Ralls County, Missouri. The rest of the family moved to Oberlin in 1885.
Sources Consulted
Archives control card by Archivist William E. Bigglestone, Oberlin College Archives, 1973.
Alumni Records, Oberlin College Archives.
Edward B. Plumb, Find a Grave Memorial, https://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi/http%22//fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=157182518, accessed 23 March 2017.
Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force of the United States Army for the Years 1861, ’62, ’63, ’64, ’65, Part VII (Washington, July 16, 1867). Accessed online from Google Books, 23 March 2017.
Report of the Adjutant General and Acting Quartermaster General of Iowa, Volume 1, January 1, 1868 (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, State Printer, 1868). Accessed online from Google Books, 23 March 2017.
Repository: Oberlin College Archives
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted.
Acquisition Method: The papers were received by the Oberlin College Library as part of a gift from Mary (Mrs. Allan F.) Millikan, daughter of Edward B. Plumb and Isabel Mills Plumb. They were transferred to the Archives on January 24, 1973. The photograph of Ralph Plumb was moved from a general photograph collection to this one in May 2017.
Related Materials: See the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue exhibit on the Oberlin College Archives website, http://www.oberlin.edu/archive/exhibits/Wellington_Rescue/index.html.
Finding Aid Revision History: Processed by William E. Bigglestone, 1973; finding guide by Anne Cuyler Salsich, 24 March 2017.
