Duncan Upshaw Fletcher (January 6, 1859June 17, 1936) was an American lawyer and politician of the Democratic Party. Senator Fletcher was the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Florida's history. He also served two terms as Mayor of Jacksonville and served in the Florida House of Representatives. Early life and career Born near Americus, Georgia, Fletcher studied law at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated in 1880 and was admitted to the bar the following year. He set up a law practice in the city of Jacksonville, Florida. He was a founding member of the Jacksonville Bar Association and its first president. He was an early investor in in the area now called Fort Lauderdale, more specifically Wilton Manors, to start the company known then as Florida Fiber, a sisal hemp farming operation. He was general counsel for several railroads, including the Florida East Coast Railroad, which was operated by Henry Flagler, formerly president of Standard Oil. In 1896, Fletcher was one of three attorneys appointed to administer the bar examination to James Weldon Johnson, who in addition to his many other accomplishments was the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar by examination. It was Senator Fletcher who moved that Johnson be admitted to the bar over the objection of another examiner. Political career Fletcher became active in municipal politics and was elected to the city council in 1887 and served as Mayor of Jacksonville from 1893 to 1895 and from 1901 to 1903. He rebuilt Jacksonville after the devastating Great Fire of 1901. In 1893, he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives. From 1900 to 1907, Fletcher chaired the Board of Public Instruction of Duval County. In 1908, he served as president of the Gulf Coast Inland Waterways Association and later, the Mississippi to Atlantic Waterway Association. Senate career In 1909, the Florida Legislature elected Fletcher, a Democrat, to the United States Senate, where he served and was re-elected for four consecutive terms. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson appointed him chairman of the United States commission to investigate European land-mortgage banks, cooperative rural credit unions, and the betterment of rural conditions in Europe. President Wilson also appointed Fletcher as a delegate to the International High Commission. Senator Fletcher served on a number of government committees, including the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, where he was chairman from 1916 to 1919, the Committee on Commerce subcommittee