James Cooley Fletcher (1823–1901) was a Presbyterian minister and missionary with strong activities in Brazilian lands. Fletcher was born in Indianapolis, the son of Calvin Fletcher, a banker and one of the first settlers of Indiana. James Cooley Fletcher graduated from Brown University in 1846, and studied theology for two years in the Princeton Theological Seminary under Charles Hodge. His studies were completed in Europe, as he sought to improve his French in order to become a missionary in Haiti. In that period, he married a daughter of César Malan, a minister from Geneva.