Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Spencer and the Rose Parade

                Few people watching the fantastic pageantry of the annual Rose Parade yesterday would connect the event to Spencer, Indiana but without one particular Spencerian, Calvin Fletcher Jr., there would be no Orange Grove Avenue to parade down.
Calvin Fletcher Jr. was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on September 30, 1826. He was of eleven children; nine sons and two daughters, born to Calvin Fletcher Sr. and his wife, Sarah Hill. Calvin Jr. graduated from the County Seminary in Indianapolis and then spent three years at Brown University in Rhode Island before returning to Indiana and taking up the life of a farmer.
Fletcher Jr. married in Emily Beeler in 1849 and for the next twenty years the couple resided in Marion County where Fletcher Jr. worked as a farmer, stock-trader and nurseryman and busied himself establishing statewide agricultural and horticultural societies.
During the Civil War, Emily worked as a nurse while Calvin worked building badly needed turnpikes in Indiana. After the war he became involved with the syndicate that Indianapolis & Vincennes Railroad. It was while acting as contractor and agent for General Ambrose Burnside on this project when he first became acquainted with Owen County and in June, 1869 he moved here permanently, building a beautiful white stucco mansion for his family in the town of Spencer.
In 1873 the Fletchers were attending a dinner party at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Elliot in Indianapolis when Mrs. Elliot began complaining that the unusually harsh winter had killed all her prize caladium. Others at the party joined in with complaints about the cold weather exacerbating various aches and pains when Mrs. Thomas suggested that they should all up and move to California. In fact, Mrs. Thomas proclaimed, if no one wanted to go with her she would go on her own.
The others at the party decided Mrs. Thomas was onto something and in the Spring of 1873 the group drafted an agreement to purchase a thousand acres in Southern California where they planned to grow wheat, plant vineyards, hedges and build nurseries in anticipation of the group emigrating there.
The financial panic of 1873 delayed the implementation of these plans but in November, 1873 the group formed the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association and purchased 4,000 acres of prime valley land. Calvin Fletcher Jr., was named Chief Surveyor and on January 27, 1874 divided lots were sold in parcels of 15, 30 and 60 acres with the smallest investors being allowed first choice of lots. It was Calvin Fletcher Jr. who gave Orange Grove Avenue its name. It was Dr. Thomas Elliot who found Pasadena's permanent name, asking a friend for an appropriate Chippewa phrase with the friend coming up with Pasadena, a loose translation that stands for “Crown of the Valley.” Calvin Fletcher Jr. also planned the water works in Pasadena, standing in the rain for an entire day plotting flow charts to make sure that water would “flow toward the mountains.” In 1889 community leaders decided to stage a small village fete which has become a massive American tradition. Owners of local resorts teamed with members of the elite Valley Hunt Club to decorate their buggies with flowers and parade down Orange Grove Avenue to a town wide picnic and then send photos of the event to friends and family back East in order to show those shivering souls that even in the dead of winter Pasadena could cover the town, and everything in it, in roses.
Calvin Fletcher Jr. and his family never moved to Pasadena. In September of 1874 the Fletcher Family sailed for Europe where they stayed for the next three years while Calvin Fletcher worked on problems of aquaculture in small ponds. In 1877 he returned with his family to his mansion in Spencer which boasted 40 rooms and 18-inch thick walls and gorgeous grounds planted with Tamarack trees and a formal maze hedge to the south of the home.
Calvin Fletcher Sr. had once recorded in his diary that his namesake son had been acting “rash as usual” and even called in a phrenologist who felt the bumps on the boy's head and declared him “calculated to be a businessman.” By the late 1880s the younger Fletcher had run into financial difficulties and talked about turning his impressive Spencer home into a Sanitarium to capitalize on the natural mineral springs that ran through the property but nothing ever came of the plan.
When Calvin Fletcher Jr, died in 1903 the Fletcher Mansion was sold to E. Chubb Fuller, publisher of The Agricultural Epitomist who ran it as an experimental farm with, “a well selected orchard, a vineyard, several gardens and extensive greenhouses.” The farm became renowned for its herd of thoroughbred Portland China pigs, their Shropshire and Highland Blackface sheep, various poultry and waterfowl, Angora goats and 100 of the “finest Scotch collies in America.”
The Fletcher Mansion served as the administrative offices and printing press for the Epitomist untill the venture failed after the death of Mr. Fuller and the property was sold to Gordon B. Tanner who, in turn, sold it to Ephraim T. Barnes. Ironically, Mr. Barnes used the property to establish the largest Dahlia farm in the world, originating over 1,000 new hybrids of the flower whose rhizomes must, in central Indiana, be dug up and stored every winter, becoming known as “The Dahlia King” and “The Luther Burbank of Dahlias.” People came from all over the world to see Mr. Barnes' Dahlia Farm which he named the National Cooperative Show Gardens.
Ephraim T. Barnes died in 1933 after several years of ill health and the Fletcher Mansion went into steep decline. In 1981 it was purchased by Jim and Sally Vance who had originally stated their intentions of restoring the house and using it as a family home but, finding the structure too far gone to salvage, tore it down in October of 1990 in order to build a bigger home for their business. Today the Mansion's footprint is the parking lot for that business, Boston Scientific, a concern that manufactures medical devices.
Back in 1874 an acre in Pasadena would have set you back $100.00, or about $19,000 in inflation adjusted dollars. Maybe the phrenologist and Calvin Fletcher Sr. was right, Calvin Jr. was “calculated to be a businessman,” as even a quarter acre vacant lot in Pasadena would sell for well over $200,000 today but “rash as usual” for not seeing the deal through to its profitable conclusion.
Calvin Fletcher Jr. once stated in response to a direct query that, “the ambition of his life had been to become a fair representative of the average American citizen, which he considers the best standard of manhood in every sense of on earth, as far as his observation extends. He believes firmly that ultimately American ideas will prevail throughout the earth.” So perhaps today while we enjoy the phantasmagorical floats and marching bands as they make their way down Orange Grove Avenue we pause to spare a moment to think of the man responsible for laying out the town and naming the street, Mr. Calvin Fletcher Jr., of Spencer, Indiana and perhaps raise a glass of water in his honor.

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