1795: James Fleming of Hampshire County buys 334 acres on Simpson's Creek

This may be the document the whole Fleming question turns on, and Robert Earl transcribed it in full by hand without ever saying so in as many words.

Harrison County Deed Book 2, pages 202–203. Made 6 October 1795, between Thomas Berry and Barbara his wife of Harrison County, Virginia, of the one part, and — the phrase that matters —

“James Fleming of the County of Hampshire and State aforesaid of the other part”

For five hundred dollars paid in hand, the Berrys sell him

“a Certain tract or parcell of Land lying and being in the said County of Harrison on Simson’s Creek Containing Three hundred and thirty four Acres”

held under a Commonwealth patent dated 21 December 1786.

Why this is the important one

Two facts sit in that sentence, and they are the two facts the archive has been circling all day.

1. James Fleming was “of the County of Hampshire.”

John Fleming IV’s 1853 death register entry gives his birthplace as Hampshire County — and Robert Earl starred it as erroneous, substituting Montgomery County, Maryland from the pedigree he had then adopted. He later retracted that entire Maryland pedigree.

So the archive currently carries a starred “error” that came from a civil record, overridden by a lineage its own author withdrew. This deed puts a James Fleming in Hampshire County in 1795 — the same county the death register names for a boy born there in 1781.

2. The land is on Simpson’s Creek.

Lewis Fleming was born about 1807 “on his father’s farm on Simpson’s Creek in the eastern sector of Harrison County.” Here is the Simpson’s Creek land being bought in 1795, by a James Fleming, in a single tract of 334 acres.

The sequence that follows from it

Set beside the other land records in the papers, a coherent story appears — and this archive states it as an inference, not a finding:

Year	Record	Source
1795	James Fleming of Hampshire Co. buys 334 acres on Simpson’s Creek, $500	this deed
1798	Ann Fleming → James Fleming Jr., 215 acres	deed index
c. 1803	John Fleming buys a 168½-acre farm from James Fleming for one dollar	1998 email
c. 1807	Lewis Fleming born on his father’s farm, Simpson’s Creek	typescript
1827	A James Fleming witnesses John’s consent for Lewis’s marriage	the note
1833	Ann & Fleming → James Fleming, 127 acres, Simpson Ck	deed index

A man buys a large tract, and over the next forty years pieces of it pass to Flemings — including 168½ acres to John for a nominal dollar, which is what a father does for a son on his marriage. That is now seven separate contacts between a James Fleming and this household.

It is still not proof. The deed does not say James was John’s father, or John’s anything. Robert Earl concluded in November 1998 that “James Fleming was indeed the progenitor of our line of Flemings” without showing his reasoning, and this transcription is very likely the reasoning.

But James was not his final answer. By April 1999 he had shelved the question entirely — “I’ve decided to turn my back on our John Fleming b. 1781… Still leaning towards Samuel or Patrick.” Four positions in thirteen months, and the last names neither John nor James. This deed is the best thread available; it is not a conclusion, and this archive should not present it as one.

What would settle it: the c. 1803 Harrison County deed for the 168½ acres — a one-dollar conveyance normally states the relationship between the parties — and any Hampshire County record for a James Fleming before 1795.

And a complication, on the same batch of notes

A second sheet abstracts Western Maryland Genealogy, volume 4 (1988), from the “Descents” volumes in the Frederick County, Maryland clerk’s office. It records Flemings acting as land commissioners there:

• John Fleming — August 1804 and August 1811
• Arthur Fleming — February 1806, August 1807
• Joseph Fleming — August 1806

And Robert Earl’s note beneath: “The above John Fleming is thought to be John #3 born ca 1744 died 1829.”

That is John Fleming III — of the retracted line — sitting as a commissioner in Maryland in 1804 and 1811. Which does not fit the typescript’s account of that man moving to Washington County, Pennsylvania in 1781 and dying at Pike Run Township in 1829.

So the papers hold two incompatible Fleming families: a Maryland one at Frederick County, and a Virginia one out of Hampshire County onto Simpson’s Creek. Robert Earl worked on both, tried to join them, and in November 1998 concluded he had joined them wrongly. The Hampshire–Simpson’s Creek thread is the one with a deed behind it.

(The sheet also copies a reader’s query about a George Castle who married a Margaret Fleming in Frederick County — one of the many loose Fleming connections he collected and never resolved.)

Source: handwritten transcription of Harrison County Deed Book 2, pp. 202–203 (Thomas Berry and wife to James Fleming, 6 October 1795), and abstract notes from Western Maryland Genealogy vol. 4 (1988); both from Robert Earl Wildermuth’s research papers, in Chuck’s keeping. Photographed 2026.