Surname: Fleming, Miller, Jones, Beniah, Harvey, Ball, Harter Compendium of Biography Of Henry County, Indiana B. F. Bowen 1920 WILLIAM R. FLEMING This native-born citizen of Henry County, Indiana, had his nativity on the site of his present home in Fall Creek Township, June 23, 1838, and is of Virginia extraction and ante-Revolutionary descent. His parents, William and Sarah (Miller) Fleming, were natives of the Old Dominion, having been born long before the new state of West Virginia was partitioned off from the old, and William Fleming was the first child to see the light of day in the fort at Fairmont in Marion County, West Virginia, his birth having taken place in 1787. Bose Fleming, the father of William, was a soldier in the patriot army during the war for American independence. William Fleming, the father of William R., was first married in Virginia and came to Indiana with four children, about 1830. He first located in Delaware County, four miles north of Middletown, Henry County, where his wife died two years later. A year or so after this event Mr. Fleming was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Miller, daughter of William Miller. This lady was a native of the Shenandoah valley, Virginia, and was a child of three years when taken to Clermont County, Ohio, but was a woman grown when she accompanied her parents to where Tabor, Delaware County, Indiana, now stands. Mr. Fleming thence came to Henry County and purchased the tract of land to which he brought his newly-made bride, which tract was improved with what was then considered to be a large frame house, but which would now be looked upon as a small affair, and in this house William R. Fleming was born. The original farm was increased to about four hundred acres before the death of the elder Mr. Fleming, to which he added still more, of which he gave his eldest son a fair share and cleared up two hundred acres for his own use, being still the owner of four hundred at the time of his death. November 24, 1862. His death was caused by exposure while flat boating on the Ohio River and his age at the time of his death was seventy-five years. To the first marriage of William Fleming were born the following named children, who reached mature years: George, who was a farmer in Delaware county and died about 1862 at the age of seventy years; Mary, who was married to William Jones and died when past sixty; David H., who had lived on a part of the old farm as a bachelor and died at seventy; Norville, who resides at Sulphur Springs. To the second marriage was born William R. Beniah, who had enlisted in 1861 for three years or as long as the war might last, was assigned to Company E, Eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, died of pneumonia in March. 1863, when but nineteen years old, when passing through the state of Missouri: William R. also enlisted at the same time on the same terms, was assigned to the same company and regiment and was with his brother at the time of the latter’s death. The Eighth Indiana was in the service three years. Mr. Fleming took part in many marches, skirmishes and battles, among the latter of which was Pea Ridge, Arkansas. After this battle he was assigned to the Sixty-ninth Indiana Regiment and took part in the memorable Banks expedition up the Red river. He was at Vicksburg, and was sent across the Gulf of Mexico into Texas. Subsequently he joined his own regiment at New Orleans, and they went aboard the boat St. Mary’s, bound for Fortress Monroe. >From the latter place they were sent to the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, when the subject received his honorable discharge, September 5, 1864. He was never wounded and never missed roll call and now receives a pension from the government of twelve dollars per month.When Mr. Fleming returned to his home he bought out the interest of the heirs to the old homestead of two hundred and forty acres, but it required about twenty years for him to clear up his indebtedness. - On this farm lie has made all the improvements, building the dwelling in 1870. He now owns two hundred and eighty acres, on which he grows grain chiefly and fattens hogs, depending on the latter for his profits. June 22, 1865, Mr. Fleming married Miss Nancy J. Harvey, a daughter of Henry and Elizabeth (Ball) Harvey, who at that time resided near Sulphur Springs. Indiana. Mrs. Fleming was born April 28, 1840, in Delaware County. Indiana, and when a child was brought to Henry County by her parents, who originally came from Monroe County, West Virginia. Mrs. Fleming was not a very robust lads’, was for two years a confirmed invalid, and passed away March 31, 1887, the mother of five children, namely: Harvey B., a farmer living near the parental homestead; Henry Everett, who died in infancy; Ludoska, who died at the age of fifteen years: Maude, wife of Rutherford B. Harter, who lives on the Fleming homestead, and Nellie, who passed through the common school course, was well educated in music and is now the housekeeper for her father. Mr. Fleming is a gentleman of strong will power and is sufficiently broad minded to learn the lessons of experience, a faculty in which many Hoosiers are lacking: never the less he was very impressible in his early clays and dropped into many follies which he rectified in later moments of reflection, never again to resume them. At the age of twenty-one he began to chew tobacco, but soon abandoned the pernicious habit. At the same age (1839) he went to Pike’s Peak, Montana, where he passed nine months in prospecting for gold, but with no satisfactory results. On his trip to that then Mecca of adventurers in seek of a fortune he saw for the first time a gambling game going on, on aboard a steamboat on the Missouri river on the voyage from St. Louis, Missouri, to Leavenworth, Kansas. Mr. Fleming took a hand in the game, which in fact was no game at all, but simply a one-man trick and that one man a blackleg. Mr. Fleming lost fifty dollars, but was allowed by the operator to win it back again, together with the invaluable advice to gamble no more, advice Mr. Fleming has since implicitly followed. In his early days Mr. Fleming was also greatly addicted to the use of alcoholic beverages, and when he and his brother-in-law got “full” they slept off their intoxication in the orchard, until one day he saw his wife approaching in tears at his deplorable condition and this ended the bad habit forever. He had the will power to do so, and his word then, as now, was as good as his bond. In politics Mr. Fleming is a stanch Democrat and stands on the Chicago and Kansas City platforms of the party. Fraternally he has been a Mason since June 1865, and is a member of Lodge No. 271 at Middletown, but attends meetings only when it is necessary to take part in the work on the “trestle board.” Mr. Fleming is in fact the “architect of his own fortune,” his success in life being the result of his individual efforts, and no residents of Henry County stand higher in the esteem of their fellow citizen than Mr. Fleming and his family, of Fall Creek Township.