Fletcher Sr., Job

Born: 1793-11-11 Rockbridge County, Virginia

Died: 1872-09-04 Sangamon County, Illinois

Flourished: Sangamon County, Illinois

Called Job Fletcher Sr., or Squire Job to distinguish him from his nephew Job Fletcher Jr. or Capt. Job.

Fletcher Sr.'s father died when he was an infant, and in 1808, he moved with his mother and older brother to Logan County, Kentucky. While in Kentucky, he served for six months in the War of 1812. He married Mary Kerchner on December 22, 1818, in Todd County, Kentucky. They had one child in Kentucky. In 1819, they moved to Ball Township in Sangamon County, Illinois, where they had six more children. In 1820, he taught the first school along Sugar Creek, and in 1821, he became the first justice of the peace for Sangamon County. Fletcher purchased 150.84 acres of land in Sangamon County in 1823. He represented Sangamon County in the Illinois Senate from 1826 to 1828. In 1830, Fletcher had nine other people in his household, including his wife. In the early 1830s, Fletcher purchased more than 113 additional acres in Sangamon County. After George Forquer resigned his Illinois Senate seat, voters elected Fletcher to replace him, and he represented Sangamon County in the Illinois Senate from 1835 to 1840. During the session of 1836-37, Fletcher was a part of the “Long Nine” group of tall legislators from Sangamon County that included Abraham Lincoln and who engineered the transfer of the capital from Vandalia to Springfield. From 1844 to 1846, Fletcher represented Sangamon County in the Illinois House of Representatives. He belonged to the Whig Party. In 1860 Fletcher was working as a farmer in Sangamon County, owned $300 in real estate, and was living with five other people in his household.

John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 301-302; Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales, Sangamon County, 68:6, 73, 146, Illinois State Archives, Springfield; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 200, 203, 205, 206, 212; History of Sangamon County, Illinois (Chicago: Inter-State, 1881), 285, 786-87; Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 8 August 1835, 3:1; John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven: Yale University, 1986), 58, 124; U.S. Census Office, Fifth Census of the United States (1830), Sangamon County, IL, 140; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Sangamon County, IL, 59-60; Gravestone, Cumberland Sugar Creek Cemetery, Glenarm, IL.