MR. & MRS. HARRY B. FLETCHER

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TABLE OF CONTENTS        LINCOLN CO. BIO. INDEX

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      HARRY B. FLETCHER, a well known Lincoln county farmer, is equally prominent both as a school and church worker.  He has a choice three hundred and twenty acre farm near Sherman, all under cultivation and well improved, where he makes his home during the summer months, but during the school year he lives in Wilbur in order to afford his family better educational advantages than can be had in the country.

      Mr. Fletcher was born August 23, 1856, in Muscatine county, Iowa, and is one of three children.  He has a sister, Mrs. Mary E. Gristey, of Miami, Indian Territory; and one brother, William Henry, of Prescott. Washington.  His father, Samuel D., was born and reared in Wheeling, West Virginia, and was one of the pioneer settlers of Muscatine county, Iowa, where he lived forty years, going thence to Kansas in 1872.  In 1877 he came to Walla Walla, and at the time of the Indian outbreak was at Camas Prairie.  He then returned to his Kansas home.  In 1884 he again came west on a visit to his son, the subject of this sketch, and while here died, being at the time in his sixty-third vear.  Mr. Fletcher's mother, Susan (Overman) Fletcher, a native of Highland county, Ohio, also is dead.

      Mr. Fletcher is a man of educational attainments, having received his training in the grammar schools and Mohaska College, at Oskaloosa, Iowa.  He went with his father to Springhill, Johnson county, Kansas, and in 1880 he went to Leadville, Colorado, and engaged in mining.  On October 21, 1881, he was married to Miss Carrie Allen, whose birthplace was in Waverly, Iowa.  Mrs. Fletcher's grandfather, Samuel Fisher, went to California in 1849 and after a short stay returned home.  Later he went from Wisconsin again to the gold fields of California and there remained till his death which resulted from disease of the lungs.  He had married Miss Annie Marie Wodard, a native of Batavia, New York.  She died at Homer, Iowa, where she was an early settler.  She had been a devoted Christian all her life and did much for the poor and sick.  At her death, loving and grateful friends erected a monument to her memory.  Mrs. Fletcher's father. Thomas C. Allen, was born November 5, 1829, and died November 24, 1862, at Benton Barracks, St. Louis.  He was a marble cutter and married Harriett M. Allen, who was born March 23, 1839, near Laporte, Indiana, and died at Wilbur, October 28, 1903.  Their marriage occurred November 8, 1855, and to them three children were burn, Henry A., Mrs. Fletcher, and Francis M.

      In the spring of 1882 Mr. Fletcher removed to Waitsburg, Washington, and engaged in the hotel business, and the following year he bought his present farm near Sherman.  He has besides this property a handsome home in Wilbur, two choice lots in Spokane, and a half interest in a paying mine, known as the LeRoi, near Keller. Washington.

      To Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher have been born eight children, — Clarence, Blanche D., Samuel
D., Byron, Zella, Josie, Clifton, and Florence.

      Mr. Fletcher is a member of the W. of W. fraternity, and elder in the Presbyterian church, of which bis wife is also a member.  Upon coming to Sherman, the Fletchers found neither church nor school there, so they opened their own house to both. They organized a Sunday school, of which Mrs. Fletcher was superintendent, and later they were instrumental in the erection of a twelve hundred dollar church, built in 1897, with a present membership of seventy-five.  The church was organized by Rev. Arthur B. Coart, with an original membership of ten.  The church now has a Y. P. S. C. E. with a membership of seventy-live.

      Mr. Fletcher is one of the useful and substantial citizens of his county.