Wesley Fletcher Martin was born near Dalton, Georgia, May 3, 1850.  He enlisted with the Confederacy in a Georgia regiment during the last year of the war.  The regiment’s commander, General Cheatham, selected Wesley to be a courier due to his small physical size.  Young Wesley weighed at the time only sixty pounds, which combined with his skill as a horse back rider made him an ideal courier and a small target.  He moved to Greenville in July of 1877 and not long after his relocation he married Miss Mattie C. Land of Anderson on Jan. 20, 1878.

            W. F. Martin was an active citizen of Greenville not only in his employment but also in his church and public service work.  The textile industry provided him with twenty years of employment as a cotton weigher.  Along with his paying work for the cotton industry, he was an active and respected member of the Greenville Volunteer Fire Department.  In 1884, Mr. Martin was the captain of Lee Fire Company, and then in 1896, he was elected assistant fire chief and served in that capacity for two years.  Wesley and Mattie were charter members of Second Presbyterian Church when it was organized in a meeting room of the Washington Street Presbyterian Church (currently, First) on March 17, 1892.

            In 1915, the Greenville Daily News published an article concerning the fine record of Capt. Martin with the street railway company.  The addition of street railway service to Greenville modernized its business district.  Street railways were seen to be a way of not only providing transportation for the public but also improving street sanitation by limiting draft and riding animal traffic and its associated waste.

    The Southern Public Utilities Company started at the first of the year a system of recognition of service on the part of its employees.  The company awards one gold stripe for each year’s service up to five years, when a gold star is awarded.  Capt. W. F. Martin was given his uniform with two stars and four stripes upon it, which signifies that he has been in the employ of the company for fourteen years.  Captain Martin ran the first car which moved over the lines of the Greenville Traction Company, nearly fifteen years ago.  Ever since that time he has been a faithful and efficient employee of the company and though the management has changed, he was prized by his new employers just as if his long service of fourteen years had been under their management.  Captain Martin had the unique distinction of having been a motorman for ten years and having avoided any accident during that time.  For the past four years he has been an inspector.

The first electric trolley was run in Greenville in 1901.  It left the car barn on Broad Street, made its way to and proceeded down Main Street, stopped at the Mansion House Hotel to board dignitaries, and ended its route—after a delay caused by having to remove muck from the tracks—at the Poe Mill.  The abandoned site of Poe Mill is along A Street between Buncombe Road and Hammet Street and is currently being redeveloped.

            Wesley F. Martin died in the morning of Oct. 7, 1915 in his residence on Garlington Street after having suffered an illness extending over several months.  At the time he was taken ill, he was employed by the Southern Electric Utilities Co. as an inspector of the local street railway system.  While his death was expected, it came as a shock and his passing came as a loss to many friends.  His health had been failing for several years but he had been confined to bed for the six months preceding his death.  The funeral services were conducted in the family residence with A. A. Bristow, J. R. Smith, Tandy Walker, Thomas W. Earle, H. Berry Ingram, and J. E. Gwinn serving as pallbearers.

            Mattie survived Capt. Martin by over twenty years.  After many years as a wife, mother, and homemaker, she died on Jan. 11, 1936 at the age of 81.  According to the Greenville Daily News obituary for Wesley, the Martins had four girls and one son—Mrs. E. M. Henderson, of New York; Mrs. M. E. Garrison, of Easley; Mrs. Homer Dillard and Mrs. J. H. Massey, of Greenville; and Mr. H. Curtis Martin, of Binghamton, N. Y.  Both of the Martins had continued as members of Second Presbyterian Church since their participation in its organization in 1892.

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Firefighting in Greenville County, 1840-1990, by W. D. Browning, Jr., 1991, pages 16, 26; the information regarding the Martins is from Wesley’s obituary in the Greenville Daily News, Friday, Oct. 8, 1915; the date of the block quotation from an earlier issue of the News has not been ascertained other than the year was 1915; and an obituary or death notice for Mattie was not located, but a copy of one would be greatly appreciated.