Plummer was born in 1863 in
Freeport, Maine, to Solomon Hayford Plummer and Ruth Bucknell (Harding). He attended
North Yarmouth Academy, and also lived in
Bath, where he worked in the city's shipyards to fund his college years. He graduated from
Bowdoin College in 1887, after which he worked as a newspaperman for Bath's
Daily Times. In 1898, the year preceding the death of his father, Plummer started to practice
admiralty law. He joined the
U.S. Navy, for which he was employed as an assistant
paymaster. In 1921, he became a member of the
U.S. Shipping Board, and was its vice-president from 1923. Plummer published his first book,
Reminiscences of a Yarmouth Schoolboy, in 1926. He went on to publish several more before his death in 1932. Two books were published posthumously:
Ancient Augusta: a Novel from History (1932) and
The Edward Clarence Plummer History of Bath, Maine (1936), the latter written by Henry Wilson Owen. ==Death==