Duncan U. Fletcher
Duncan Upshaw Fletcher was a lawyer and politician, the longest serving U.S. Senator in Florida's history. After graduating with a law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1880 he practiced law in Jacksonville, Florida. He was a founding member and first president of the Jacksonville Bar Association. He served as general consul for several railroad companies, including Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway. He was elected to the Jacksonville city council in 1887 and served as mayor in 1893-1895 and 1901-1903. In 1893 he also was elected to the Florida House of Representatives. From 1900 to 1907, Fletcher chaired the Board of Public Instruction of Duval County. In 1908, he served as president of the Gulf Coast Inland Waterways Association and later, the Mississippi to Atlantic Waterway Association. Fletcher was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1909 and he was re-elected for four consecutive terms. He died while in office.
In 1890 Fletcher purchased 1,300 acres of land at Middle River near present-day Fort Lauderdale from the Florida Coast Line Canal & Transportation Company. He deeded this land to his Florida Fiber Company, which started a plantation there to cultivate sisal hemp. The Expedition party visited this plantation on April 13 in the company of C.G. Phillips, whom they had met while at the Fort Lauderdale House of Refuge.
- Birth: January 6, 1859, Americus, Georgia
- Death: June 17, 1936, Washington, D.C.
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Credits:
Sources:
- Findagrave.com
- "FLETCHER, Duncan Upshaw, (1859 - 1936)," Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- "Duncan U. Fletcher," Wikipedia.org
- "The Florida Fiber Company: Duncan U. Fletcher and the Middle River Enterprise," by Rodney E. Dillon, Jr. and Joe Knetsch, Broward Legacy, Vol 21., No. 3-4, 1998
References in the Texts:
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For other topics referenced in the Expedition texts, please refer to the Index to Subjects and Names.
1892 Everglades Exploration Expedition : Three Digital Texts, 2015