Senator Jonathan Emerson Fletcher View All Years

GEN. JONATHAN E. FLETCHER, an old settler of Muscatiue, died at his residence, near that city, April 6, 1872, at the age of 66 years. The Old Settlers Assciation of Muscatine attended his funeral in a body, and passed the usual resolutions of respect and regret. We find in the Muscatine Journal a tribute to his memory and an account of the more prominent events of his life, which we copy, from the pen of a favorite contributor to the ANNALS—Suel Foster, Esq.—who knew the deceased long and intimately:

“Gen. J. E. Fletcher was a native of Thetford, Vermont. He was an early settler of this city (Muscatine), coming here in the summer of 1838, when Iowa was made a separate territory. He attended the first land sale in the territory, in November, 1838, at which he bought lands six miles west of the city, upon which he located in the fall of 1839, and went to farming, having previously returned to Vermont and married his surviving wife. He had resided a few years in Ohio before he came to Iowa.

“Gen. Fletcher has held many responsible offices in this territory and state. He was a member of the convention which framed the old state constitution, taking an active and important part in the formation of our fundamental law.

“In 1846 he was appointed by President Polk an Indian agent, for the Winnebagoes, and served in that capacity eleven years, having removed the location of the agency twice, making three different places in the territory of Minnesota, where he resided—Fort Atkinson, on Turkey river, Mankota, on Minnesota river, and high up the Mississippi river above St. Paul. Few agents indeed are ever better calculated to manage a tribe of Indians. The Winnebagoes, Sioux, and Chippewas were frequently at war, and he was often instrumental in saving much bloodshed. With quiet apprehension, decision, and firmness, and great courage to face and surmount all difficulties, his valuable services in his long career as Indian agent, to the government, and to the country, are incalculable.

“In all these arduous duties, General Fletcher was accompanied by his faithful wife, who rendered him great assistance; beside she spent much time in teaching the Indians the English language from books. Dr. Frank Fletcher, their oldest son, was, when they went among the Indians, quite a young boy. He played and frolicked with the Indian boys, and soon learned their language so well that he became his father’s interpreter.

“Gen. Fletcher returned to his farm, one mile west of this city, in 1858, where he has ever since engaged in farming. He leaves his dutiful and afflicted wife and eight children—five sons, and three daughters, his oldest son having studied medicine, and settled in that practice, a few years ago at Detroit, Mich.

“Gen. Fletcher was a man of marked and noted character,—a man of talent, energy, and industry, actuated at all times by truth, right, and justice; affection, benevolence, and kindness, which, based upon the foundation of Christianity, enabled him to accomplish much good in this life, and to gain, in a high degree, the esteem, frendship, and love, of a wide circle of acquaintances, who find that in him they have lost a great and good friend in time of need,—they will not soon find one to fill his place.

“As a citizen of the city and county, we have lost a great and good man, in whose counsels we have so often found wisdom, goodness, and benefit, and we mourn his loss.”