BIOGRAPHY: William Wilson FLEMING, Mifflin County, PA

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The Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley, Comprising 
the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, and Perry, Pennsylvania.
Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. Runk & Co., 1897, Volume I, pages 578-579.

  WILLIAM WILSON FLEMING, Reedsville, Mifflin county, Pa., son of William McEwen 
and Sarah Craig (Wilson) Fleming, was born at Cedar Hill, in Brown township, 
Mifflin county, April 28, 1842.  The family is descended from Robert Fleming, of 
Campbelltown, Scotland, who came to America with his sons, John, James and 
Robert, early in the last century.  In April, 1762, John Fleming married Mary 
Fleming, and in 1765, he removed from Oxford township, Chester county, Pa., to 
Cedar Hill, Brown township, where he took out warrants for some 300 acres of 
land, which he cleared and cultivated.  Here he raised his children, who were as 
follows:  Margaret;  Jean;  James;  David;  and John.  He served in the 
Continental army throughout the whole of the Revolution, and lived to see the 
country he had helped to make free and independent, well through her earliest 
struggles, and holding a position of high honor among the nations.  Seven 
Presidential administrations were past, and a part of the eighth, when John 
Fleming died, in 1820, at the patriarchal age of eighty-six.  His youngest son, 
John Fleming, Jr., married Mary McEwen;  their family consisted of the following 
children:  Henry, born March 16, 1806;  John, born April 17, 1807;  Elizabeth, 
born October 20, 1808;  Mary Ann, born February 1, 1810;  Jean, born December 
30, 1811;  William McEwen, born August 17, 1813;  Sarah, born March 6, 1815;  
John Fleming, Jr., died at Lewistown, Pa., October 24, 1832, of heart failure, 
at the age of fifty-nine.
  His youngest son, William McEwen Fleming, passed his boyhood and early manhood 
on the Fleming homestead, receiving his education in the schools of his 
neighborhood.  The business of his life was the cultivation of that very 
productive and finely situated farm, which his well-directed efforts brought to 
a state of superior excellence.  Its improvements in the way of construction, 
buildings, fences, &c., well deserve the name, being convenient and well kept.  
Mr. Fleming was a man of influence in his township;  his character and 
intelligence caused his advice and co-operation in local affairs to be valued.  
In 1851, he was elected director of the poor, on the Democratic ticket.  He was 
a consistent member of the Presbyterian church.  His marriage with Sarah Craig 
Wilson took place May 18, 1841.  Their children are:  William Wilson;  Anna 
Mary, born March 6, 1844, died March 19, 1888;  Sarah Jane, born June 14, 1846, 
married Henry Fleming, and has seven children, resides at Ayr, Neb.;  John, born 
November 26, 1848, died November 26, 1859.  Mrs. William McE. Fleming died 
December 20, 1848, aged twenty-eight;  her husband survived her many years, 
dying April 17, 1893, at the age of seventy-nine years and eight months.  Rev. 
John Fleming, one of his elder brothers, was a graduate of Princeton Theological 
Seminary, was ordained in the Presbyterian church, and served for many years as 
a missionary.  He spent the later years of his life at Hastings, Neb., and 
during his residence there had the title of Doctor of Divinity conferred upon 
him.
  The eldest son of W. McE. Fleming, William W. Fleming, attended the common 
schools until he reached the age of seventeen, when he entered the 
Kishacoquillas Seminary, and took a literary course of several years' duration;  
this curriculum was supplemented by a course of study at Duff's Business 
College, Pittsburg, Pa.  Mr. Fleming then took charge of the home farm for his 
father, and after the death of the latter, succeeded him in its possession.  He 
continued to reside there until March, 1895, when he removed to Reedsville.  He 
is now in partnership with his son in the sale of agricultural implements, and 
resides in a pleasant and convenient cottage of modern style.  Mr. Fleming has 
always been an active and enterprising man, not only energetic in the pursuit of 
his own business, but also interested in the welfare of the community, and 
serviceable to the best of his ability.  He is a staunch Democrat.
  William Wilson Fleming was married December 9, 1869, to Almedia, daughter of 
James and Barbara (Miller) Davidson.  Their children are:  William McEwen, born 
August 25, 1870;  Eleanor Barbara, born October 5, 1871;  Guy Davidson, born 
June 8, 1873, married November 10, 1896, to Winona Mayes, of Altoona, Pa.;  
Henry Wilson, born August 4, 1874, married to Mary E. Rice, of Reedsville, Pa., 
October 12, 1896;  James Craig, born March 12, 1881;  and Ray Pettit, born 
February 13, 1885.  Mr. and Mrs. Fleming are members of the Presbyterian church 
at Reedsville.  The parents of Mrs. Fleming, Mr. and Mrs. Davidson, were natives 
of Canada;  they were married November 12, 1848, and removed in 1850 to Lee 
county, Ill.  They had five children.  Mrs. Davidson died October 5, 1860, aged 
about thirty-six years.  Mr. Davidson died at the age of sixty-one, January 4, 
1887.