Henry Fletcher
Calvin Coolidge
William Phillips
Calvin Coolidge
Warren G. Harding
William Phillips
Warren G. Harding
William Phillips
Thomas Dawson (Minister)
July 10, 1959 (aged 86)
Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.
Early life[edit]
Fletcher was born in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, in 1873 to Louis Henry Fletcher (1839–1927) and Martha Ellen (née Rowe) Fletcher (1840–1896). His siblings included James Gilmore Fletcher (1875–1960), David Watson Fletcher (1880–1957) and Florence Fletcher (1883–1957).[2] He was the fourth cousin once removed of William McKinley.[3]
Fletcher planned to attend Princeton University, but his family could not afford to send him, therefore, he studied law and shorthand in his uncle's law office.[2]
Shortly after beginning to practice law, the Spanish–American War broke out and the United States declared war on Spain in 1898.[4] Fletcher joined Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders as a private in Troop K.[5] He served in the U.S. Army, both in Cuba and in the Philippines for two years.[2]
Personal life[edit]
In 1917, he married Beatrice Bend (1874–1941),[24] a daughter of George H. Bend, a member of the New York Stock Exchange who had gone bankrupt.[25] Bend's sister, Amy Bend (1870–1957), was married to Cortlandt F. Bishop in 1899.[26][27][28] Henry and Beatrice did not have any children.[2]
He died in 1959 at his home in Newport, Rhode Island,[29][2] and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He left an estate worth $3,000,000,[30] and donated his personal papers to the Library of Congress. He also left a portrait of George Washington, by Edward Savage, to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.[31]