Sutter County
Biographies
JOHN W. FLESHMAN
A very successful rancher, whose energetic and highly intelligent enterprise speaks well for the progressive spirit of his town and county, is John W. Fleshman, of Live Oak, proprietor of twenty choice acres of the Sutter estate, which he acquired by purchase in 1919, the year when he came from Marysville, where he had settled five years before. He was born in Putnam County, Mo., on August 4, 1888, the youngest of eight children in the family of Richard and Elizabeth (Priest) Fleshman. His father first saw the light in Pennsylvania, and started with his parents in 1850, with ox-teams, to California; but they turned back to Missouri, and never reached the Golden State. They resumed farming on their old home place in Putnam County; and when the Civil War involved the country in anarchy, Richard Fleshman became a member of Company B, 6th Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and served for more than three years under Grant. He was badly wounded, and had to endure a long, slow period of convalescence. He still lives in Putnam County, enjoying the confidence and esteem of all who know him.
John attended the public schools, and remained at home to help his parents until he was twenty-one. Then he left to attend Moeller College of Barbering, in Kansas City, from which he was graduated. He then located at Tipton, Kans., and there followed his line of activity. In 1914 he came to California, and almost immediately to Marysville; but after five years, in which he tried various occupations, he moved to Live Oak. He was factory foreman and blacksmith at Yuba City, and had charge of seven men in the forge shop; but perceiving the greater future in Live Oak, he there embarked in agricultural pursuits. He conducts a small dairy, and sells his produce at retail in the town of Live Oak.
At Tipton, Kans., Mr. Fleshman was married to Miss Mary Arnoldy, a native of Tipton and a daughter of the well-known pioneer, M. J. Arnoldy, who, with his devoted wife, is now dead, the pioneer couple having made an enviable record for usefulness in the world, and having enjoyed the goodwill of all who knew them. Mrs. Fleshman has two brothers, Walter and Guss Arnoldy, residents of Butte and Yuba Counties, respectively; and she has a sister at Notre Dame, in Santa Clara, who has been for some years a nun, while another sister, Mrs. W. H. Streit, lives on a ranch near Gridley, where her husband is engaged in operating a peach and poultry ranch. Mr. and Mrs. Fleshman have one daughter, Adelaide, who is attending the grammar school at Live Oak. Mr. Fleshman is a member of the Knights of Columbus at Marysville.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p . 1300-1301
ELVIS LAFAYETTE COPLANTZ
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