Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

ELVIS LAFAYETTE COPLANTZ

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
            A thorough-going orchardist and vineyardist of the Tierra Buena 
section of Sutter County is found in Elvis Lafayette Coplantz, who since 1908 
has been actively identified with the agricultural growth and prosperity of 
Sutter County.  He was born in Brown County, Ill., April 18, 1868, the eldest of 
two children born to John S. and Emily E. (Perry) Coplantz.  John S. Coplantz 
located at Honcut, Cal., in 1876, and did farm work throughout Butte County.  
Later he bought a house and lot in Honcut, where he resided until his death; 
here his wife still lives, in her seventy-fifth year.
            Elvis Coplantz attended the public school at Honcut and Heald�s 
Business College in San Francisco.  For ten years thereafter he was engaged in 
teaming from Marysville to Camptonville and to La Porte, and then he began 
farming.  He worked four years for wages on the Moore ranch and then four years 
for himself, farming 100 acres to wheat and barley.  He bought 160 acres at 
Honcut, lived on it for seven years, and then removed to Oroville, where he 
remained for a time.  Then he farmed at Pacific Heights; and at the same time he 
was foreman of Boynton�s West River ranch for about six years.
            The first marriage of Mr. Coplantz occurred at Honcut, November 12, 
1890, and united him with Miss Dora A. Hedge, a native of Bangor, Cal., daughter 
of James Hedge, who crossed the plains about 1852 or 1853 and was well known as 
a teamster to the mines in early days, and who is now living retired with his 
wife, Julia (Townsend) Hedge, at Bangor, Cal.  Mr. and Mrs. Coplantz were the 
parents of three children:  Lavonia, deceased; Ferman, an ex-service man, and an 
orchardist in Sutter County, who married Miss Veronica Peckwith, born at 
Downieville; and Dudley, also an ex-service man, and a rancher on the home 
place.  Mrs. Coplantz passed away September 22, 1921.  Mr. Coplantz was married 
a second time, in Sacramento, on May 28, 1923, to Mrs. Phebe (Bliss) Wilson, 
born in District No. 10, Yuba County, a daughter of the late Edgar and Sarah 
(Dorerty) Bliss.  Her father was born in New York and came to California around 
Cape Horn.  He was a miner and later a farmer.  By her first marriage, with Fred 
Wilson, Mrs. Coplantz had four children:  Mrs. Ethel Scott, of Arizona; Mrs. 
Irma Bowker, of Los Angeles; Edgar, also of Los Angeles; and Mrs. Eva Creasy, of 
Santa Barbara.  Mrs. Coplantz is a member of the Rebekah Lodge in Yuba City.  
Mr. Coplantz is a Republican in politics; and fraternally he is a member of the 
Modern Woodmen of America at Oroville and the Royal Neighbors at Gridley.  He is 
also a member of the California Automobile Association and the California 
Associated Raisin Growers� Association.  For eighteen years Mr. Coplantz served 
his community as a school trustee.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p . 1301-1302