M. H. FLETCHER, D.D.S., M.D. 



Mordecai Hiatt Fletcher, son of Francis Fletcher and Elizabeth 

 Hiatt, was born at Richmond, Indiana, September 18, 1849. He 

 was the fourth child in a family of nine children, and came of 

 Quaker stock. He was reared on a farm which his father owned 

 near Richmond. His love of nature seems to have been inborn. 

 During his barefooted days on the farm, he listened to the chatter 

 of the blackbirds as they followed up the plow. Before he was 

 twelve he had observed the articulation of the bones of a bird's 

 wing, and applied the mechanical principle involved to the study 

 of aerial navigation, which he took up in the later years of his 

 life. As a boy the only schooling he had was that afforded by 

 the country district school in winter. He was a born investigator 

 of natural phenomena, and love of animals, birds, insects, plants 

 and trees oozed from every pore. Actual contact with the soil 

 gfives to a bov an enthusiasm and zest to the studv of nature that 

 is not supplied in any other way. Riley depicts the life of just 

 such a country boy when he sings : 



"Oh ! they's nothin", at morn, that's as grand unto me. 

 As the glorys of Natchur so fare — 

 With the Spring in the breeze, and the bloom in the trees, 



And the hum of the bees everywhere ! 

 The green in the woods, and the birds in the boughs. 

 And the dew spangled over the fields." 



At fourteen, we find Mordecai apprenticed to a jeweler in 

 Richmond. During his apprenticeship, besides mastering the use 

 of delicate tools, he developed constructive ability of a high order. 

 He built two working models of a steam engine, one of which he 

 always kept in his office and with pardonable pride exhibited to 

 his intimates. Four years later, when he had served his time, he 

 bought out the jewelry store in which he had learned his trade, 

 and ran it a number of years without success. He retired from 

 this, his only venture in the mercantile world, with this character- 



