46 Facts About Calvin Fletcher

Calvin Fletcher 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.

Young Calvin Fletcher attended local schools until the age of sixteen and worked on the family farm.

Calvin 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.

Calvin Fletcher returned home for a brief time then moved to Westford, Massachusetts, to attend school.

In 1817, after completing his education at Westford, Calvin Fletcher set out on his own.

Calvin Fletcher ended up in Urbana, Ohio, in 1817, where he taught school, studied law under James Cooley, and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1820.

Calvin Fletcher married Sara Hill on May 1,1821, in Urbana and they moved to Indianapolis in 1821.

Calvin Fletcher 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.

On November 4,1855, Calvin 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 Calvin 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.

Calvin Fletcher began his law practice in Urbana, Ohio, and became the first attorney practicing law in Indianapolis.

Calvin Fletcher 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.

Calvin Fletcher won re-election to the part-time position and remained in office until resigning in 1833.

Calvin Fletcher was a member of the state sinking fund Commission from 1834 to 1841.

Calvin Fletcher was affiliated with the anti-Jackson and Whig parties.

In 1860 Calvin Fletcher supported the Republicans in state elections and Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign.

In 1844 Calvin 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.

Calvin Fletcher remained active in banking for the rest of his life.

In 1857 Calvin Fletcher was an organizer of the Indianapolis Branch Banking Company.

Calvin 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.

Shortly before his death, Calvin Fletcher made a public appearance in support of a proposed Indianapolis-Vincennes railroad.

From 1839 to 1855 Calvin Fletcher owned a 269-acre farm called Wood Lawn, which would later be developed as Fletcher Place.

Calvin Fletcher owned other farms in Marion County and in Morgan County.

Calvin Fletcher shipped cattle to his brother Elijah Fletcher in Lynchburg, Virginia, which made both wealthy men.

Calvin Fletcher actively supported and led a variety of activities to assist his community.

In 1851 Calvin Fletcher was appointed to the Southeast District as one of three superintendents for the new Indianapolis free public schools.

Calvin Fletcher was 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.

Calvin Fletcher was a trustee for the Marion County Seminary and the Indiana Female College.

Calvin Fletcher supported agricultural development and helped organize Indiana's first agricultural fairs in the county and state.

Calvin Fletcher helped found the Marion County Agricultural Society, becoming its treasurer in 1835 and its president in 1851.

Calvin 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.

Calvin Fletcher joined the Free Soil Party in 1848 and was a member of the Indiana state central committee.

Calvin Fletcher helped found the Indiana Total Abstinence Temperance Society, and in 1863 led the Freedman's Aid Commission.

Calvin Fletcher supported the organization of the US colored troops in Indiana during the war.

At the request of Indiana Governor Oliver P Morton, Fletcher purchased arms for Indiana's regiments.

Calvin Fletcher assisted the Indianapolis Benevolent Society, a local organization that helped the city's poor, serving for years as its secretary.

Calvin Fletcher was interested in the efforts of the Widows and Orphans Society and active in the temperance movement.

Calvin Fletcher 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.

Calvin Fletcher became superintendent of Sunday Schools at Asbury Chapel and Roberts Chapel, and attended Wesley Chapel on the Circle.

The Calvin Fletcher Place United Methodist Church was built on the site his house.

Calvin 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.

Calvin 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.

Keziah Calvin Fletcher sold the Calvin Fletcher home on Pennsylvania Street after her husband's death, left Indianapolis, and returned to the East Coast, where she died in Boston on June 10,1899.

The northern part of Calvin Fletcher Place was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Calvin Fletcher Place Historic District in 1982 and the southern part as Holy Rosary-Danish Church Historic District in 1986.