Matthias "Mack" Fletcher

The Sunday Gazetteer
Sunday, December 22, 1895

Born on April 25, 1847, in Henderson, North Carolina, Mack Fletcher stayed at home until he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1864. His parents were John W. Fletcher (1821–1843) and Matilda Fletcher (1820–1872). Mack served as a private in the 1st Battalion, North Carolina Junior Reserves, Company A, for a year or so. By 1870 he was living in Giles County, Tennessee, where (in 1867 or 1873) he married Hester Wilmoth Brannon (1848–1918).

In 1880, Mack, Hester, a son, and two daughters were farming in Grayson County, Texas.

William K. Brannon (1851–1941) was a brother of Mack's wife Hester. He opened Brannon and Company, mattress manufacturers, at 607 West Main Street in Denison, in 1890. Operations were moved to the 800 block of West Main Street in 1893. Mack joined the company in 1891, living above the factory while Brannon and his family resided at 813 West Owings.
 
In 1891, William Brannon was forty years old. On Christmas Day, 1894, his wife, Emily Caroline White Brannon, died in Denison, leaving behind numerous children. She was buried in Oakwood Cemetery. In 1900, the Census found William in a rural part of Grayson County near Sherman, farming. By 1910, he had moved to Maguire, Oklahoma. There, in 1920, he married a Norwegian woman, Pauline Leutchcke (1857–1921), who died the next year. In 1920 William was engaged in truck farming. He passed away at Tipton, Oklahoma, on June 25, 1941.

As William Brannon seems to have left Denison to farm after wife Emily's death in 1894, Mack Fletcher took control of the business. In 1894, Mack built a new building at 931 West Owings Street and South Chandler Avenue.

In 1896, the Denison City Directory reported that Mack Fletcher had a firm called M. Fletcher & Co. It owned Pioneer Custom Corn and Feed Mill Co., "dealers in hay, corn, chops, corn meal, and Graham flour." Pioneer also was called Pioneer Excelsior Mattress Works. In addition to mattresses, the company manufactured awnings and wove carpets. It was located at 512–520 West Chestnut Street.

The 1900 Census listed Mack Fletcher and his son, John A., as "mattress makers." Mack and his family were living at 913 West Owings, while John A. and his family were living next door at 917 West Owings.

931 West Owings Street.
Source: "Red River Mattress Works, Mack Fletcher, Manager." Robinson, Frank M., comp. Industrial Denison.
[N.p.]: Means-Moore Co., [ca. 1909]. Page 94.

The family now began to migrate to Oklahoma. Mack homesteaded in Tillman County in 1904. Oklahoma Statehood occurred on November 16, 1907. The 1910 Census found Mack and Hester, as well as her brother William Brannon and his seven dependents, living in Maguire, Tillman County, Oklahoma. Both men were farmers. Hester died and was buried in Memphis, Hall County, Texas, in 1918, the year of the great influenza epidemic. She had pneumonia and influenza.

By 1920, Mack was living in Painter, Comanche County, Oklahoma, with his daughter Minnie and her husband, Henry Walston, another farmer. Mack listed no occupation. Having become senile, he passed away on September 5, 1926, and was buried in Cache Cemetery in Cache, Comanche County.

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