Calvin Fletcher (February 4, 1798 – May 26, 1866) was an American attorney who became a prominent banker, farmer and state senator in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1821 Fletcher moved from Vermont via Ohio to the new settlement of Indianapolis, where he made his financial fortune. In addition to his business interests, Fletcher was involved in Indianapolis's educational and civic development. After his death, one of his farms (Wood Lawn) was developed into an early Indianapolis neighborhood, and Fletcher Place is now a nationally recognized historic district.
Fletcher's diary, published as The Diary of Calvin Fletcher in nine volumes by the Indiana Historical Society between 1972 and 1983, describes a wide range of topics as well as Fletcher's personal interests, acquaintances, and community activities.George Geib, "The Diary of Calvin Fletcher and the Historians," Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History 10(1):22.Gayle Thornbrough, ed., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1972) 1:xii.
Early life and education Fletcher was born on February 4, 1798, in Ludlow, Vermont, the eleventh child of Jesse and Lucy Keyes Fletcher's fifteen children.Thornbrough, ed., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 1:xix. Fletcher's father, a poor man with a large family to support, still managed to provide his children with a basic education. Young Fletcher attended local schools until the age of sixteen and worked on the family farm. With his father's permission, Fletcher left home in 1815 at the age of seventeen. Fletcher went to Windsor on the Connecticut River, where he worked on several local farms before moving to Royalton and later to Randolph, Vermont, to attend school and work. Fletcher returned home for a brief time then moved to Westford, Massachusetts, to attend school.Thornbrough, ed., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 1:xx–xxi.
In 1817, after completing his education at Westford, Fletcher once again set out on his own.Thornbrough, ed., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 1:3–4. With no particular destination in mind, Fletcher traveled south through Connecticut to New York City and Philadelphia, then west through Pennsylvania to Wheeling.Thornbrough, ed., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 1:5–9. Fletcher ended up in Urbana, Ohio, in 1817, where he taught school, studied law under James Cooley (who would become the first American charge d' affairs in Peru), and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1820.Thornbrough, ed., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 1:10.
Marriage and family Fletcher married Sara Hill on May 1, 1821, in Urbana and they moved to Indianapolis in 1821. Arriving in the small settlement nearly penniless, Fletcher became a wealthy lawyer, banker, and landowner.Thornbrough, ed., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 1:xii–xiii. He and his wife had eleven children: two daughters (Maria and Lucy) and nine sons (James Cooley, Elijah T., Calvin Jr., Miles J., Stoughton A., Ingram, William B., Stephen Keyes, and Albert.Thornbrough, et al., eds., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 9:265–276. His eldest son, James Cooley Fletcher, became a Presbyterian minister and missionary. Sarah Hill Fletcher died on September 27, 1854.Thornbrough, et al., eds., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 5:x.
Calvin Fletcher Jr. was married to Civil War nurse Emily Beeler Fletcher, born November 20, 1828, outside of Indianapolis to Joseph Beeler and Hannah Matthews-Beeler. Her grandfather, George Matthews, was the first settler on White Lake Creek in Morgan County in 1820. During the Civil War, in 1863, she was asked by Governor Oliver P. Morton to go the front to care for the sick and wounded that were unable to be brought North. She worked in the Nashville and Murfreesboro hospitals, and was a founder and board member of the Indianapolis Home for Aged Women, founded in 1867 to care for transient women. She died in 1910 of nephritis.
On November 4, 1855, Fletcher married his second wife, Keziah Price Lister from Hallowell, Maine, who had come to Indianapolis in 1851 to become a public school teacher.Thornbrough, ed., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 1:xvi. Lister, whose first husband had deserted her and moved to Texas, obtained a divorce and then married Fletcher. In 1855 Fletcher moved his children and second wife into the Alfred Harrison home on North Pennsylvania Street in Indianapolis, leaving the Wood Lawn house to his son, Miles, and his family.
Career
Law, government, and politics Fletcher began his law practice in Urbana, Ohio, and became the first attorney practicing law in Indianapolis.Calvin Fletcher Fletcher Place Neighborhood Association. Retrieved May 1, 2012. He was prosecutor for the Marion County Circuit Court in 1822 and 1823 and a prosecuting attorney for the Fifth Circuit Court in 1825 and 1826. Fletcher formed a law firm with Ovid Butler, Simon Yandes, and Horatio C. Newcomb. On December 26, 1846, Fletcher and Butler dissolved their law practice and collection business, and Fletcher focused on his farming operations and banking interests.Gayle Thornbrough and Dorothy Riker, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1974) 3:ix.
In 1825, voters in Marion County (surrounding Indianapolis) and several surrounding counties elected Fletcher as their state senator. He won re-election to the part-time position and remained in office until resigning in 1833.Shepard, et al., A Biographical Directory of the Indiana General Assembly, 1:128 - 129. This was the only elected office Fletcher ever held, aside from his stint as the Marion County prosecutor. Alexander B. Morrison, a veteran of the Black Hawk War who at various times published the Indiana Democrat and Indiana State Sentinel in Indianapolis (and the Indiana Statesman in Charlestown, Indiana, in 1830) won the election to become his successor.Shepard p. 283
Fletcher was a member of the state sinking fund Commission from 1834 to 1841.Rebecca A. Shepard, Elizabeth Shanahan-Shoemaker, Charles W. Calhoun, and Alan F. January, A Biographical Directory of the Indiana General Assembly (Indianapolis: The Select Committee on the Centennial History of the Indiana General Assembly in cooperation with the Indiana Historical Bureau, 1980) 1:129. He was affiliated with the anti-Jackson and Whig parties. Initially a member of the Free Soil Party, Fletcher was a member of the party's state committee and served as its convention chairman in 1849.Gayle Thornbrough, Dorothy Riker, and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1975) 4:xii. In the 1850s Fletcher was a member of the Fusion party and then became active in promoting the Republican Party ticket in the 1856 state and national elections.Gayle Thornbrough, Dorothy Riker, and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1977) 5:xx. In 1860 Fletcher supported the Republicans in state elections and Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign.Gayle Thornbrough, Dorothy Riker, and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1978) 6:xxi.
Banking and railroad interests In 1844 Fletcher helped organize the State Bank of Indiana, in which he acted as the Indianapolis branch's director from 1841 to 1844 and as branch president from 1843 to 1858. He remained active in banking for the rest of his life. In 1857 Fletcher was an organizer of the Indianapolis Branch Banking Company. In 1863 he joined his son Stoughton, his brother Stoughton, and fellow bankers Thomas H. Sharpe and Francis M. Churchman in organizing the Indianapolis National Bank, which was the second national bank in Indianapolis.Gayle Thornbrough and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1981) 8:xiii–xiv.
Fletcher was a stockholder in the Indianapolis and Bellefontaine Railroad as well as a board member, and served briefly as its board president in 1855.Thornbrough, et al. eds., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 4:xiv. Shortly before his death, Fletcher made a public appearance in support of a proposed Indianapolis-Vincennes railroad.Gayle Thornbrough and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 9:267.
Farming From 1839 to 1855 Calvin Fletcher owned a farm called Wood Lawn, which would later be developed as Fletcher Place. His son Stoughton divided it into lots and developed it into a residential area.Thornbrough, et al., eds., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 6:xiv. The settlement had several residents who made "many contributions were made to the early development of architecture, religion, commerce, education, and social life in the city of early Indianapolis". By 1852, Fletcher's farms adjacent to Indianapolis's northeast side had increased to approximately . He also owned other farms in Marion County and in Morgan County.Thornbrough, et al., eds., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 4:xiii. He shipped cattle to his brother Elijah Fletcher in Lynchburg, Virginia, which (with real estate investments as well) made both wealthy men.
Community service Education Fletcher actively supported and led a variety of activities to assist his community. Although his own education was limited, he strongly supported the free public school system. In 1851 Fletcher was appointed to the Southeast District as one of three superintendents for the new Indianapolis free public schools.Thornbrough, et al., eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 4:x. In 1853 the Indianapolis City Council appointed Fletcher as one of the first members of the Indianapolis Board of School Trustees.Thornbrough, et al., eds., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 5:xvi. Fletcher was also appointed a trustee during the organization of Asbury College which became DePauw University, serving on the college's board from 1837 to 1839 and as its treasurer from 1848 to 1855.The Ediface, DePauw University website. Retrieved May 1, 2012. Fletcher was also a trustee for the Marion County Seminary and the Indiana Female College (and president of that board of trustees in 1850).
Agriculture Fletcher supported agricultural development and helped organize Indiana's first agricultural fairs in the county and state. He helped found the Marion County Agricultural Society, becoming its treasurer in 1835 and its president in 1851. In addition, Fletcher was a founder of the State Horticultural Society.Gayle Thornbrough, ed., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1973) 2:xiv.
Abolition and temperance Fletcher was an abolitionist like his friend and colleague, Ovid Butler, but unlike his Virginia-based brother Elijah. Calvin Fletcher became Indiana's state colonization society's manager in 1829. Also in 1829 he represented four enslaved women in a suit against their enslaver, William Sewall, in which the court ruled in favor of the women's freedom. He joined the Free Soil Party in 1848 and was a member of the Indiana state central committee. In 1852, Calvin Fletcher's long-standing interest in colonization led him to support a State Board of Colonization that would provide state funds to assist blacks living in Indiana to establish a colony in Africa. He also helped found the Indiana Total Abstinence Temperance Society, and in 1863 led the Freedman's Aid Commission.Shepard, p. 129
Military assistance Fletcher and his family also contributed to and participated in the American Civil War. Three of Fletcher's sons served in the Union army.Gayle Thornbrough, Dorothy Riker, and Paula Corpuz, eds., The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1980) 7:xii.Thornbrough, et al., eds., Diary of Calvin Fletcher, 8:xii.