My Genealogy Hound

Dr. John P. Fletcher. It is no disparagement to others to say that Dr. Fletcher is one of the county’s most prominent physicians and surgeons. A native of Rutherford County, Tenn., he was born in December, 1827, being the son of John D. and Catherine H. (Featherstone) Fletcher. John D. Fletcher came originally from Georgia, and when a lad of seven years accompanied his parents to Tennessee, of which locality they were among the earliest settlers. The Fletcher family are of English extraction, and the first member in this country settled in Virginia, at an early day. The father of the subject of this sketch was a man of more than ordinary brilliancy and scholarly attainments, and devoted his attention to the practice of law. In 1837, during the Seminole War, he was captain of a company of volunteers from Rutherford County, Tenn., and after the close of that struggle, the people elected him representative of their county. Later he was made senator from Lincoln and Franklin Counties, and died in 1850 while a member of that body. His widow now lives with her son, John P., and is in her eighty-third year. John P. received all the advantages for an education that were to be had in his young days, and in 1844 accepted the position of assistant teacher in Lowndes County, Ala. His boyhood’s ambition was to be a physician, and having determined to make that study his life’s profession, in 1848 he began reading medicine, and pursued his studies at the University of Louisiana, in which he has twice matriculated. He graduated in 1873 from the Charity Hospital Medical College of New Orleans, and it was there that he received, during his hospital practice, the knowledge of the science of surgery and medicine, which has made his career so peculiarly successful. After having practiced his profession in Mississippi for some time, he moved with his family to Arkansas, locating in Lonoke (then Pulaski) County, and afterward settled in Butler Township, Lonoke County, where he resided until 1889, then coming to the village of Lonoke. In June, 1845, Dr. Fletcher was married to Miss Mary A. Cooper, a native of South Carolina, who died in 1873 leaving ten children, seven sons and three daughters. His second marriage occurred in 1874 to Miss Martha J. Gamble. She survived until 1876. The Doctor chose for his third wife, Miss Permelia E. Gamble. Of the six children resulting from this union, four sons and two daughters are living: John D. (a well-known Baptist minister in the county), William P. (a resident of Lonoke, who has served as sheriff of the county eight years, also representing it, and is the present State senator in the State legislature from Lonoke and Prairie Counties), Thomas M. (dentist, at Lonoke, a graduate of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery), Burl A. (a physician and druggist at Augusta, Ark., and a graduate of Bellevue Medical College of New York), Mary Catherine (wife of A. F. Huntsman, ex-postmaster of Lonoke, and a son of Adam Huntsman, the successful opponent of Davy Crockett, of Tennessee) and Susan J. (wife of E. S. Lee, of Lincoln County.) In politics the Doctor is a Democrat. He is an enterprising and ambitious citizen, and is a member of the Masonic fraternity. He is also president of the Lonoke County Board of Medical Examiners, and with his family worships at the Baptist Church.