Calvin Fletcher

Fletcher began his law practice in Urbana, Ohio, and became the first attorney practicing law in Indianapolis.[8][17] 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.[18] Fletcher formed a law firm with Ovid Butler, Simon Yandes, and Horatio C. Newcomb.[8] On December 26, 1846, Fletcher and Butler dissolved their law practice and collection business, and Fletcher focused on his farming operations and banking interests.[19]

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.[20] This was the only elected office Fletcher ever held, aside from his stint as the Marion County prosecutor.[2] 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.[21]

Fletcher was a member of the state sinking fund Commission from 1834 to 1841.[18] He was affiliated with the anti-Jackson and Whig parties.[20] 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.[16] 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.[20][22] In 1860 Fletcher supported the Republicans in state elections and Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign.[23]

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.[17][20] He remained active in banking for the rest of his life.[19] 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.[18][24]

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.[25] Shortly before his death, Fletcher made a public appearance in support of a proposed Indianapolis-Vincennes railroad.[26]

House built in 1895 for Fletcher's grandson, Calvin I. Fletcher (III), in Indianapolis

From 1839 to 1855 Calvin Fletcher owned a 269-acre (109 ha) farm called Wood Lawn, which would later be developed as Fletcher Place.[17] His son Stoughton divided it into lots and developed it into a residential area.[27] 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".[17] By 1852, Fletcher's farms adjacent to Indianapolis's northeast side had increased to approximately 1,400 acres (570 ha). He also owned other farms in Marion County and in Morgan County.[28] He shipped cattle to his brother Elijah Fletcher in Lynchburg, Virginia, which (with real estate investments as well) made both wealthy men.

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.[10] In 1851 Fletcher was appointed to the Southeast District as one of three superintendents for the new Indianapolis free public schools.[14] In 1853 the Indianapolis City Council appointed Fletcher as one of the first members of the Indianapolis Board of School Trustees.[29] 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.[17][30] Fletcher was also a trustee for the Marion County Seminary and the Indiana Female College (and president of that board of trustees in 1850).[18]

Fletcher supported agricultural development and helped organize Indiana's first agricultural fairs in the county and state.[10] He helped found the Marion County Agricultural Society, becoming its treasurer in 1835 and its president in 1851.[16] In addition, Fletcher was a founder of the State Horticultural Society.[31]

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.[32] 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.[16] He also helped found the Indiana Total Abstinence Temperance Society, and in 1863 led the Freedman's Aid Commission.[33]

Fletcher and his family also contributed to and participated in the American Civil War.[10] Three of Fletcher's sons served in the Union army.[34][35]

He also supported the organization of the U.S. colored troops in Indiana during the war. The 28th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops used his farm land to train between December 1863 and April 1864.[36] During the war, Fletcher helped provide aid for soldiers' families, assisted local efforts to welcome returning soldiers home, and served on the city's Sanitation Committee. At the request of Indiana Governor Oliver P. Morton, Fletcher purchased arms for Indiana's regiments.[37] After the war, Fletcher contributed to the Freedman's Aid Society.[38]

Fletcher assisted the Indianapolis Benevolent Society, a local organization that helped the city's poor, serving for years as its secretary.[39] He was also interested in the efforts of the Widows and Orphans Society and active in the temperance movement.[10][40]

Fletcher was known as a very religious man. He joined the Methodist Church in 1829 and provided financial support to assist other denominations build their own churches, thus contributing to help erect almost all early churches in Indianapolis.[10] Fletcher became superintendent of Sunday Schools at Asbury Chapel and Roberts Chapel (after having helped establish those Methodist congregations in Indianapolis), and also attended Wesley Chapel on the Circle.[22][39][41] The Fletcher Place United Methodist Church was built on the site his house.[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.[42]

Fletcher had a longtime interest in history. A member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, he became one of the original members of the Indiana Historical Society (IHS), founded in 1830.[18][43]

Fletcher's diary, donated to the IHS by his family in the 1920s, is in the IHS collections and provides “a powerful contribution” to understanding life in “the early nineteenth-century Midwest”.[1][44]