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I am so very proud of my family history. I spent a total of about 3 years doing research into both of my parent’s families. And I am so very proud of the ancestry that I have. We have played very pivotal roles in the world. But also very important roles in the founding of America. What I am posting and...
I am so very proud of my family history. I spent a total of about 3 years doing research into both of my parent’s families. And I am so very proud of the ancestry that I have. We have played very pivotal roles in the world. But also very important roles in the founding of America. What I am posting and why I am posting all of this is just to brag really on my family name and some of the history behind it. The Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Fleming’s link to King James IV of Scotland, the King of the King James edition of the Bible, who commissioned its’ translation, is genealogically solid. Starting with Col. William Fleming and Jane Clark, the parents of the William Fleming who married Jean (Jane) Frame and his brothers Robert, Archibald and John. Colonel William Fleming (February 18, 1729 – August 5, 1795) was a physician, soldier, statesman, and planter who briefly acted as the Governor of Virginia during the American Revolutionary War. He is often confused with his contemporary, Judge William Fleming, who served in the Virginia legislature and was a delegate to the Continental Congress. Fleming was born in Jedburgh, Scotland, to Leonard and Dorthea Fleming. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and then entered the Royal Navy, serving as a surgeon's mate. While in the service, he was captured and imprisoned by the Spanish. After his release, he resigned from the navy and in 1755 emigrated to Virginia. During the French and Indian War, Fleming was commissioned an ensign in George Washington's Virginia Regiment, and served as a surgeon in the Forbes expedition and in the Anglo-Cherokee War, among other actions. When the war ended in 1763, he married Anne Christian (sister of William Christian) and settled at Staunton, Virginia, where he practiced medicine. In 1768 he retired from medicine to farm at his estate called "Belmont" in Augusta County (now Roanoke County, Virginia). His investments in land eventually made him wealthy. In Dunmore's War (1774), Colonel Fleming led the Botetourt County militia at the Battle of Point Pleasant. He continued to lead his men after being shot twice, but a third, more serious wound forced his withdrawal. A musket ball lodged in his chest was never removed and often caused him pain. Disabilities from these wounds, from which he never fully recovered, prevented his military service in the American Revolutionary War. The Virginia Assembly awarded him £500 in compensation. Fleming was active in politics during the American Revolution, representing a western district as a member of the Senate of Virginia. In 1781, British forces invaded Virginia and scattered Governor Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature. When the legislature reconvened at Staunton, Jefferson's term had expired, and so Fleming, as senior member of the Virginia Council present, acted unofficially as governor. He served in this capacity from 1 June to 12 June, when Thomas Nelson was elected by the legislature as the next governor. During this brief time Fleming called out the Virginia militia to oppose the British invasion. A later resolution of the legislature retroactively legalized his actions. For this reason, he is regarded as the third governor of the commonwealth. During and after the War for Independence, Fleming headed commissions to Kentucky to settle land disputes and attend to other official business. In 1784 he attended the Danville Convention, which paved the way for Kentucky's separation from Virginia. His final public service was as a Botetourt County delegate to the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention, which ratified the U.S. Constitution. Fleming had reservations about the new constitution, but he voted in favor of ratification as instructed by his constituents. William Fleming High School in Roanoke, Virginia, is named for him. Their mascot is "The Colonel". The name of Fleming is as old as any of the FLEMING many time-honored family names of Scotland, and has worthy connection and honorable mention in numerous important events in Scottish history, that have passed into song and story. During the stormy political and religious times of Scotland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, persecution, on account of religion, was prevalent, and it was during one of these periods when reason and justice were supplanted by prejudice and wrong, four brothers of this family,
William, Robert, Archibald and John, were driven by church tyranny to the North of Ireland, where the wonderful Scotch-Irish race was passing the nursery stage of its existence, ere being transplanted to this country to attain its full development in the pathless forests of the new world. The four Fleming brothers above named emigrated to this country, settling in 1741 in Penn’s colony, on the Delaware, taking up lands in what is now known as Mispillion Hundred, Kent county, Delaware. This land is still owned by their descendants. In 1789, John, with three of his brother William’s sons—Nathan, Boaz and Benoni—removed to western Virginia and settled on lands along the Monongahela river. Of John Fleming (one of the four brothers) there is but little account. [note - he was blind, a fiddler, and his upkeep was provided for among the family. From the little we do know it seems he was beloved among his kin]. After a few years the brothers Nathan, Boaz and Benoni, were joined by their sister Mary and family, and their stepmother (Ann Hudson) and her son Thomas. Gradually their children scattered until now almost every state and territory in the union boasts of some of the name as worthy citizens. As a family they are notably upright and trustworthy. Their history shows the guiding hand of a kindProvidence. “Their lines are fallen unto them in pleasant places; Yea, they have a goodly heritage.” The Flemings have been known for more than a century as one of the steady, industrious and progressive families of western Virginia, and many of its members have held with credit and honor prominent and responsible positions in both Old and West Virginia commonwealths.The following concerning its ancient history was published in Denver, Colorado, December, 1893, in “The Great Divide,” from the pen of Henry Dudley Teetor, M. A.: The statue of an armed knight with a fret upon his shield, hands elevated in a praying posture, sword by his side, and legs across, may be seen in Furness Abbey, Lancashire, England, an ancient burial place of the Fleming family. It was placed there generations ago in memory of Sir John Le Fleming, a Crusader. One branch of the Flemings still bears a shield charged with a fret—a heraldic composition of the cross and Norman mascle indicating that the family had a founder, one or more, in the holy wars. The surname of this illustrious family, according to the sentiments of the most approved historians and antiquarians, was at first assumed from a person of distinction, who in the days of King David I. (1124), a Fleming, by nation, transplanted himself into Scotland and took the surname Flander- ensis, or Le Fleming, from the country of his origin. Robert Le Fleming, the direct and immediate earl of Wigton, was one of the great barons of Scotland under King Edward I., of England (1272- 1309). It was this Sir Robert who repaired to the standard of Robert the Bruce, and with a few trusty friends, all brave men, accompanied him whom they thought their lawful sovereign in adventure at Dumfries where they killed Sir John Cuming, and never rested until they set the crown upon the head of the immortal monarch, on the Feast of Annunciation, A. D., 1306. He was succeeded by his son, Sir Malcom Fleming, Lord of Fulwood, also in great favor with the king, who made him a large grant of land in Wigton- shire, and also governor of Dunbarton Castle and sheriff of the county.He was succeeded by his son, Sir Malcom Fleming, who was a forwarder and assister of the right and title of David II., Brucian line. He succeeded his father as governor of Dunbarton Castle, and discharged the trust with the utmost fidelity. During the whole of the usurpation of Baliol, this castle was a place to which the royalist did flee and with great security resort. Here Sir Malcom had the honor to shelter and protect, in that evil time, Robert Lord High Stewart of Scotland, afterwards King Robert II. (1371). His highness was graciously pleased in reward of Sir Malcom’s signal loyalty and fidelity in his service to create him Earl of Wigton. The good earl fell sick and died soon after. He left his estates and title to his grandson, Thomas Fleming, second earl of Wigton. Malcom Fleming, Earl of Wigton, was in great favor with James V. by whom he was constituted Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland. He was slain in the service of his country at the battle of Pinkey, September 10, 1545. He married Janet, daughter of King James IV., and by her had a son, James Fleming, who being a nobleman of fine and polite parts, by special favor of Mary, Queen of Scots, made her Lord High Chancellor.
He accompanied Queen Mary to Scotland, and died in Paris, December 1, 1558. He was governor of Dunbarton Castle and distinguished himself for his zeal and loyalty to his queen. The Flemings, who became Lords of the Barony of Slane, county Meath, Ireland, descended from Archibald Fleming, who went from England to Ireland, A. D., 1173, with Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, and took part in the Norman invasion and Conquest of Ireland. The Lords Fleming, of Slane Castle, numbered, successively, twenty-three. This branch of the family came also originally from Flanders, with William the Conqueror, whose wife is known in history as Matilda of Flanders. Sir Thomas Fleming, son of the Earl of Wigton, emigrated to Virginia in 1616. Many of the family followed him to the same colony, one of whom was Colonel William Fleming, and another, the father of James Fleming, who was born in Iradell county, North Carolina, in 1762. He served in the
revolutionary war; afterwards removed to Ohio, where he died in 1832. He was the great- grandfather of Hon. Josiah Mitchell Fleming, of Denver, Colorado.
Another descendant of these Wigtonshire Flemings was Colonel John Fleming, who emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky in 1790. He was the grandfather of Hon. John Donaldson Fleming, late United States district attorney for Colorado. Furness Abbey The ruins of Furness Abbey, founded in the twelfth century, are among the most picturesque and extensive in England. The finest feature of the ancient remains are the chapter house and the triplet of grand Norman arches. In the Abbot’s chapel are two effigies of Norman Knights, twelfth century, said to be the only ones of the kind in England; and the allusion in the opening sentence to this article, is the one to them—the effigy of Sir John Le Fleming. Dunbarton Castle is built on a rock two hundred and forty feet high and one mile in circumference—a rock trodden by Roman soldiers two thousand years ago. When Queen Mary as a child was sent to France to be educated at the French court, she was brought from the monastery of Inchmahome, in the Lake of Menteith, to the Castle of Dunbarton on the 28th day of February, 1547, and on the I7th of March embarked from it to the palace of St. Germans. As a royal-fortress-residence it was entrusted to the custody of the Fleming family for generations—from Sir Malcolm Fleming, time of the Bruces, to Lord James Fleming, time of Queen Mary. I stood under its walls and listened to the sermons its stones have been preaching during the lapse of centuries:”One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.”"Tell ye, your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.”In the article is the Fleming coat-of-arms and ensign with the motto: “Pax Capia Sapientia.” “Fleming A. D. 1066.”
Clan Fleming Society 
Clan Fleming Links 
Clan Fleming People 
my parent’s families. And I am so very proud of the ancestry that I have. We have played very
pivotal roles in the world. But also very important roles in the founding of America. What I am
posting and...