Calvin Fletcher
Calvin Fletcher (February 4, 1798 – May 26, 1866) was an American attorney who became a prominent banker, farmer and state senator in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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.
[3] 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.
[5] With no particular destination in mind, Fletcher traveled south through Connecticut to New York City and Philadelphia, then west through Pennsylvania to Wheeling.
[8] 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.
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.
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.
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.
[25] Shortly before his death, Fletcher made a public appearance in support of a proposed Indianapolis-Vincennes railroad.
[17] By 1852, Fletcher's farms adjacent to Indianapolis's northeast side had increased to approximately 1,400 acres (570 ha).
[28] He shipped cattle to his brother Elijah Fletcher in Lynchburg, Virginia, which (with real estate investments as well) made both wealthy men.
[31] Fletcher was an abolitionist like his friend and colleague, Ovid Butler, but unlike his Virginia-based brother Elijah.
[16] He also helped found the Indiana Total Abstinence Temperance Society, and in 1863 led the Freedman's Aid Commission.
[39] Fletcher assisted the Indianapolis Benevolent Society, a local organization that helped the city's poor, serving for years as its secretary.
[17] Fletcher helped acquire property to establish Crown Hill Cemetery, a new burial ground at Indianapolis, organized the nonprofit corporation to operate it, and was later buried there.
[1][45] Fletcher died on May 26, 1866, after a brief illness and complications from injuries he suffered when he had been thrown from his horse two months earlier.
His former farm, Wood Lawn, was developed after his death into housing for German and Irish immigrants and craftsman, especially during 1890-1920.
Fletcher's entries, which date from 1817 until 1866, describe the details of daily life in Indianapolis, including a wide range of topics as well as his personal interests, acquaintances, and community activities.
