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Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

1998

The Diary of Calvin Fletcher and the Historians

George W. Geib Butler University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Geib, George W., "The Diary of Calvin Fletcher and the Historians" Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History / (1998): 23-25. Available at https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/791

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "Informer years I kepta Journalor diaryof the occurranciesof life and important THEDIARY OF CALVIN FLETCHER AND THE HISTORIANS dai[l]ytransactions. And I nowmost sincerely regret that I had not continuedthe r;Jeorger;Jeib samewith regularity and care down to the presentpiriod, at the ageof thirty one(in "In the summer of1821 the Delaware Indians left the central part of Indiana then a total wilder­ Feb.next). Many transactions worthy of noteare nowforgotten, others the recollec­ ness.... I had married; and on my request my worthy partner permitted me to leave him, to tion of whichis veryimperfect, and which I sometimes have wanted and oftenmay take up my residence at the place designated as the seat of government of Indiana." hereafterwant in aid of the adjustmentin myown mind [of] some difficulty which -CALVIN FLETCHER, hadgrown out of imperfectrecollection of facts." 25 March 1861, from a letter to the secretary of the New England Historical & Genealogical Register (diary entry, 28 March 1861) -CALVIN FLETCIIER. 1 Jan uaty 1829

LETCHER

Whilewe all makeNew Year's resolutions, few of us everkeep them with the tenac­ ity that CalvinFletcher kept the onehe apparentlymade on this day.The diary that , ,,_ ~ .... he hadbegun in fragmentaryfashion in 1817and continuedintermittently to 1829, ~ ,..... :_·'" ..... -~

he maintainedreligiously thereafter. In so doing,he providedus withan extraordi­ ~ :s nary recordof his life and times. Publishedin nine volumesby the Indiana On display in front of a photograph of Calvin Fletcher are two of the original diaries and seven volumes of the edited diaries. HistoricalSociety from 1972 to 1983,The Diary of CalvinFletcher represents per ­ e was born in Vermont on 4 February 1798 and lishing partnerships that extended across half of our own moved west to the new frontier that opened after century. If you haven't encountered Calvin Fletcher, make hapsthe singlemost important printed source for understandingIndiana's history. Hthe War ofl812. He arrived in Marion County, Indiana, the nine-volume edition of his diaries, published by the in 1822 with the earliest settlers, and he made the county Indiana Historical Society from 1972 to 1983, part of your In commemorationof Fletcher's two-hundredth birthday on 4 February1998, Traces his home for the rest of his life. He helped create a new future reading program. It will reward your time. so ciety in an era of profound and often unprece­ The publication of the diaries struck an especially looksback at the diaryand its impacton howwe see ourselves. dented change. We know him well because he recorded responsive chord among Hoosier historians in our time his experiences in a remarkable series of!etters and diaries because Fletcher's experiences confirmed so many of the that are an essential source for the study of early Indiana. popular interpretive themes that we have used to give We owe our easy access to him to some remarkable pub- direction and understanding to local studies. It confirmed 22 TRA CE S W i,ter 1998 23 CAL\ ' /\ F LETCHER A\D THE H !STORIA\S C ~ L I I \ F L E: T C II E: R -1 \ D T H E: H I S T 0 R I ~ ,\ S

our view that Indiana's popu lation fashioned a blend he assumed a leadership role at some point in his life. By a state of affairs what moral reform can be made. [18 developed their skills bringing much of the current canon of the distinctive regional cultures of the Atlantic sea­ the 1840s he was an "essential man" whose presence in January 1859] " oflndiana history to the public. Gayle Thornbrough was board: New England, middle state, and southern. Fletcher support of a project usually heralded its success. Because - w letcher spoke much of politics in his writings and the central figure here, in later cooperation with Dorothy filled his pages with descriptions of men, and later banks in the city bore his family name, it has become addressed issues in ways that fitted well with his­ Riker and Paula Corpuz. The project was not without chal­ occasionally women, of other regions, noting their speech common to see him primarily as an agent of sound money torians' interests in the shifting alignments of peo­ lenge. For all of his interest in his mature years, Fletcher patterns, their moral characteristics, and the responses and credit. Yet in his diaries, banking plays a much less vis­ ple and parties in that era. As an improver, a had failed to keep the volumes of his youth. He was already they encountered on a developing frontier. His account ible role than does transportation . Anyone wondering reformer, and a Whig, Fletcher seemed to exem­ a successful lawyer and community leader when the seri­ of the first time he saw Abraham Lincoln is typical of about the origins of the Indianapolis emphasis upon man­ plify the concept of themes of modernization that politi­ ous entries began in the 1830s, denying us a detailed vision Fletcher's approach. "I went with Mr. Hines at 7 to Masonic made ways to compensate for the absence of navigable cal scholars were using to define that party and to contrast of the first decade in Indianapolis. Realizing the need to Hall to hear Hon l. Ab Lincoln of Illinois speak at that water need look little further than Fletcher's early inter­ it with the western Democracy. Better still for the inter­ fill this gap, the editors turned to other Fletcher family place He is a plain commonsense man without much est in toll roads and steam railways. preters, Fletcher's subsequent shifts of allegiance-first papers, relying in particular upon journals and diaries of po lish Evidently a back Economic improve­ to the Free Soil movement and then , somewhat reluc­ his wife, Sarah Hill Fletcher, and letters to family members woods man. [19 Septem- ment was unacceptable in tantly, to the Republican party-conformed well to the who had remained in Vermont. Having once done so, the ber 1859]" Fletcher's mind if it was pattern of moral concern that a new generation of social editors supplemented subsequent volumes with similar Fletcher was particularly not accompanied by moral historians was using to explain party formation. The issues documents, adding texture and information but some­ useful in documenting the judgment. "Altho there is that gripped him in his diaries were the abuses heaped times interrupting the tone and message of Fletcher's presence of the New cfRead it /or its own sake no legal obligations, I feel upon the freedman and the reformer, whether in Marion diary. The real imbalance of the volumes, however, was England mind-set. Given always bound to give sat­ County or far away in Kansas. Fletcher's resentment at of Fletcher's own choosing. Caught up in the events of the small number of resi­ to enjoy a remarkable isfaction & not retreat un­ the treatment ofJohn Freeman, a freed slave whose mea­ the Civil War, and often reflecting at length upon the dents that, according to the der limitation laws. [12 ger possessions were lost in his legal fight to avoid a cor­ course and meaning of events, he created a record between U.S. Census, came to man as he lives in December 1862]" Like rupt slave taker, reflects the direction of his forceful 1861 and 1865 that was as long as that he kept in either Indiana from that area, his­ many in his age, Fletcher indignation. "I have had a call from his wife. I would tum the 1840s or the 1850s. Most readers grow a bit tired as they torians tended to under ­ remarkable times. ~nd spent time encouraging out at once but counsel are employed. I have already had move through the last volumes. play their influence until churches and, especially, some unpleasant words with our officers who have taken Whether the content of the Fletcher diaries serves we watched Fletcher Sunday schools. He was secretly a part with the Slaveholders. [21 June 1853]" future generations as well as it has served ours will, no impose his stamp upon value it as well /or what less interested in denomi­ Important as Fletcher was to recent historians, it could doubt, depend upon the questions that upcoming gen­ central Indiana. He was in national distinctions than be argued that his most impressive contribution was hisser­ erations of historians ask. But in one way, whatever the fash­ so many ways the quin tes­ it has helped to set in he was in the personal vice to local history itself. The same passion that led him ions, the diaries will leave a clear mark. No feature of the sential New Englander, piety that impelled men to promote education also made him a friend of the study Indiana history scene in the last quarter century has been with his careful records, motion in modern local and women to dedicate oflocal history. In his lifetime he made multiple attempts of more importance than the dramatic expansion of the his agrarian interests, his their lives to spiritual and to advance both the Old Settlers Society and the Indiana infrastructure of historical resources. Through the cre­ improving ways, and personal improvement. Historical Society, and through his family he handed his ation of catalogs and indices, through the conservation his moral imperatives. "I historical study. Seldom the extremist, remarkable papers down for posterity. The diaries, bound and expansion of collections, through transcription and have not been fortunate in Fletcher was instead an in a dozen volumes, were donated by his family to the translation, through a new consciousness of the impor­ any one undertaking in life educator and motivator Indiana Historical Society in the 1920s. There they caught tance of historical records and their access, local histori­ where I have acted against who sought to draw as the attention of one of the key figures in local study, Eli cal resources are both more varied and more accessible my own judgment from fear, hatred or unmanly friendship. large a portion of the community as possible into his causes, Lilly. By 1930 Lilly had read the manuscript and clearly than ever before. No one project or person can claim [25 July 1838]" Fletcher always addressed farming as which would range in his lifetime over much of the reform liked what he had seen. Lilly surely saw a kindred spirit­ sole credit for that change. But among the projects that his primary occupation, and he filled his pages with spectrum: free public schools, temperance , and coloniza­ a businessman of broad interests, a respectable reformer mobilized support, and that demonstrated the opportu­ records of weather, soil, crops, livestock, and markets. He tion for free Blacks among them. A pragmatist who sought concerned with his local community, an educator with a nities and the excitement possible through access to delighted in the physical activities of the farm, and to the to build upon public opinion, and thus a man who shunned special flair for local history, and a literate man who saw Indiana's local records, the Fletcher project was clearly a end of his life he worked to bring in the harvest on his lost causes, he consistently hoped to create better indi­ his wealth in the context of stewardship. "I think a young central, highly visible model. Read it for its own sake to extensive acres. viduals who could then in their turn promote better man ... unworthy of a place a home a good character enjoy a remarkable man as he lives in remarkable times. His diaries also went far to confirm the links many his­ measures. It is worth reading him as he laments the shifts who can not act like a man feel like a man able to battle And value it as well for what it has helped to set in motion torians now draw between economic changes and the of public sentiment that doom immediate adoption with world as the most distinguished men of our nation in modern local historical study. It's a good way to cele­ reform ferment of antebellum America. Fletcher's ex ten- of a Maine-style "bone-dry" liquor prohibition in India­ have beginning in poverty gradually going forward to brate Calvin's birthday. sive land holdings made him a commercial farmer and napolis. 'The State temperance society meet today. I regret wealth & usefulness. May the Lord impress the lesson. [26 undoubtedly helped account for the way the world of I signed my name to the call But few will attend I appre­ August 1850]" Lilly took the lead in arranging for the ini­ George Geib teaches thejacksonian period ofA rnerican history at farming was always linked in his mind to the new eco­ hend. With a Drunken debauched Governor . . . a drunken tial transcription of the manuscript in the 1930s. Butler University with a special attention to the experiences of the nomic measures of his time. Whether the issue was inter­ debauched president of the state university ... & worse than It was not until a generation later that the series finally Midwest. He urrote about President Benjamin Harrison for the nal improvements, credit, legal arrangement, or land sale, all a corrupt bribed Sup. [Court] bench ... -With such saw print, edited by a group of scholar-historians who had fall1996 issue ofTraces. 24 TR ACE S WiHter 1998 25