Flemings & The Woods

Since the earliest days of my childhood [Bob Craig], I recall Blair Fleming and his wife, Madge, living on Bennett's Farm on the outskirts of Indiana, PA. He was employed there as a caretaker & farmer. He raised a large family there and was living there when Madge Fleming died. His love was still for the mountains and woods. He missed the timber work and would soon return to it.

My earliest recollections are of Madge churning butter, her becoming sick, having to have a foot, then a leg and then gangrene setting in and her death. The funeral was conducted in the home on Bennett's farm in Indiana, PA. They received friends and family and she lay in state in the living room.

One time he told me that he worked in timber above Dixonville, PA, and floated logs down a stream [Dixon Creek] that is at present day only a trickle of a creek. After her passing, Blair spent much time in North Central Pennsylvania working as a lumberman. He lived at the saw mill camp until he retired. After retirement he lived with his son, Hayes Warden Fleming in Rossiter, PA until his death. I will edit this further as information is received. - Bob Craig

HARRY BLAIR FLEMING

FACTIONAL DEPICTION OF BLAIR [done by taking some things I do know and intermingling these facts with some fictional liberty]

It was a cold and frosty morning as Harry awoke. He slipped through the bear skin door of the camp and walked briskly toward the old gray mule that anxiously awaited his morning rations. There was this special long eared one that Harry had a keen appreciation for. The others, . . . well, they were just mules. This one Harry knew well. The sun was just beginning to appear over the trees on the far hill. Harry knew it wasn't below the freezing mark as yet because there was no ice on the make-shift watering troff. The cold wasn't far off though. He shivered as he stooped down and picked up the sack of grain that his mule friend was nudging him for. He pored out a generous portion of grain this morning. It was going to be a busy day. They needed to repair the breach in the earth works down stream from where they were presently taking timber. That blasted thing, when they weren't having to undo the backup of water that the beavers caused, they were having to rebuild their own so as to float the timber down to the mill.

His father was busy building their own mill and he mused how different things would be once that was finished. Harry was to be a crew chief at the new mill. This would be quite an accomplishment for him. After all he would only be 12 years old. How about that, the turning of the century and becoming 12 years old - all that and he was to have his own crew. For now, though, he was quite satisfied to be in charge of a team of mules. Harry had a rough life according to some, but he really enjoyed all that was happening to and around him. His family had been in the timber business as far back as he could remember and with him, that was just fine.

There was one thing he missed that other kids his age had though and that was schooling. Reckon he would catch up though. His father said something about his being able to catch up on schooling once the new mill was finished. There was just something about the deep timber that appealed to young Harry though. He wasn't at all sure he was ready for a more disciplined life near town. His mom kidded him about there being a lot of nice girls living in the village near where the new Saw Mill was being built. Girls? That was the farthest thing from his young mind at that time. The romance of going into the woods and hauling out timber was the most exciting part of his life and he thoroughly enjoyed everything about the work.

Little did Harry Blair know that, even though he was only 12 years old, and that it was the turn of a century [1900], he would be married and have his own first child by 1907.

The lumber business was at its peak and would continue at this swift pace as far into the future as anyone could ever dream. There were orders by land owners for lumber to build several new farms located between Clymer and Idamar - a new large coal mine way up Dixon Creek. They would require a huge order for those 10" X 10" X 8' shoring timbers, flat boards and more. Then, there was the rail road - no telling how many hundreds of rails they would require. New tracks to link the coal mines would really put a rush on things. That reminded Harry that they were to survey a new section of timber just south of Clymer. It was said that they would be able to float the timber down the stream for several miles. Of course, he knew the difficulty there. They would have to back the water up in a couple of places to accomplis that. It would be easier in the spring.

One of the more exciting things to Harry was the travel they were required. There would be one job that would require the entire crew. More men may be required. They would have to lodge in Indiana PA and work the hill West of town. They would be lodging at the West Indiana House Hotel. [See Image shown on this page [West Indiana House]. Note the big Swede 2^nd from the right next to Harry Blair and his team of mules.

Speaking of the Swede . . . He loved to pull pranks on Harry Blair. One day Harry was sitting on the bank of Crooked Creek near Clymer not far from camp. They had been cutting timber nearby and one late Sunday evening Harry was fishing and Swede snuck up behind him and shouted out his loudest bear yell. Harry jumped strait into the swift running stream. They drug him out about a hundred yards down.

DAVID FLEMING

David was the father of Harry Blair, of that there is not much doubt. The Sample Run Cemetery includes the graves of Harry and Madge, his wife, right in front of David & Jemima. There is the question of who's were the "11 Fleming Infants" represented by the single tomb stone. There is no date on the marker so it is impossible to tell. It is remarkable, again, to me that the two larger stone markers I seem to recall are no longer there and no one seems to respond to questions I have ask over and over.

About David: All the writer here knows is as a result of a youth, about 13 years old, sitting on the porch at Dixonville, PA, and listening to Harry Blair [grand father] tell of years past. What he talked about that late summer day didn't really sink in until about 53 years later. What he said that day comes flashing back because of that one statement, ". . . I used to float logs down that stream. The stream he was referring to is "Dixon Creek." It begins in the hills above Dixonville [wasn't a town at the time he floated the logs] far up in the farm country and snakes its way down the valley until it joins Crooked Creek in the town of Clymer [not a town at that time].

The reason it sunk in and remained an active memory is Dixon Creek's size. It is but a trickle of water and can be stepped over when the story was told. Today, 53 years later, it is but a ditch. The stip and pit mines have so polluted it that a yellow and orange color makes it a unsightly trickle of water. What he said that day on the porch is most likely true. If the water level of the stream decreased as much from the day Harry actually floated logs till the day he told the story as it has in my life time, it is more than possible.

Another thing grandfather said was, ". . . my family all worked the timber on those hills all around what is now Clymer, Penn Run, Dixonville and Holme, PA." By "My family," he must have meant his father [surmised as David] and brothers. Neither grandfather or mother ever talked about any of the Fleming family. It is a mystery to this writer. There was always talk about the Craig ancestors. Why not the Flemings? But, Harry Blair did say that his family were all involved in cutting timber and building saw mills. In reading family stories about other Fleming families there is much said about timber and saw mills. This is the only way one is able to make possible links from earlier generations. Some Flemings settled in Pennsylvania Oil country and made good at that business. Others moved further West in Pennsylvania and settled in the Cookport and Clymer areas. It is these Flemings about whom we are considering. It would appear that the Mentch family were the ones though that had the money. The Holmes intermarried into the Mentch family and it was Madge Alberta Holmes that married Harry Blair Fleming. The Mentch and Holmes family had a large stock in the Indiana Savings and Loan bank and their influence was felt on that bank all the way down to at least the 1950s. Mother, being a descendant of the Mentch, Holmes family was able to barter for a loan that enabled the Robert LeRoy Craig family to purchase a home in Dixonville during a very tough financial time [the late 1940s]. There was a year or more that no payments were made on the home and they were allowed to keep the home by paying the minimal interest on the transaction.

The Hill Above Dixonville

The home in Dixonville was built on a hill that was at about 45 degree slope. The front up-stairs of the house was nearly level with the road that passed by. The same level of the home at the back was a bit more than 3 stories high. The hill continued up and climbing up about 30 yards put one far above the house. At that point a continuation on up the hill would allow one to see for miles. Although the writer was never able to see it, grandfather Fleming spoke of being able to see the dome of the Indiana Court house from the top of the hill. Indian was just about 14 miles through hills and valleys. To think about it seems impossible. But considering today's hazy atmosphere it may well have been possible to see that far years ago.

MARCH & KITE FLYING

That hill became famous in the 1950s for being up high and above any trees and a place that caught the wind in such a way as to be the perfect place to fly kites. One could go downtown Dixonville and at Sepcaks or the Dime Store buy the kite of choice. The only two choices available were the diamond or box-kite. The hardware store was the best place to get string. Kite flying in Dixonville came to the mind of this writer while watching a short news item showing kites [2002] that cost $100 to as much as $700 and how they could be maneuvered. Robert LeRoy Craig once made a kite for his boys out of some small strips of wood and newsprint paper. It was the best! The early March flying of kites depended much on the snow and temperature. There was no colder place than up on that hill when the wind was blowing and the temperature would be 50 degrees or less. The Industrial Arts class at Commodore High School allowed the making of a kite string winder that permitted a faster way of letting string out or winding it in. We made one that was of dial rods and about 12" from dial to dial. This meant that one could let out 2' of string by one turn of the device. One day we put up a box kite about 200 or so feet and then attached a diamond kite and put it up with about a 20' tail of mixed colors. With a huge amount of string we let them climb until they were out of site. They caught a strong gust of wind, the string broke, and they vanished. We never did locate those kites. It was great fun! We would spend hours flying those kites. It is hard to imagine the youth of the 21^st Century enjoying this exercise as we did back then. Oh, yes, they enjoy it. But to spend hours and hours doing it. I doubt it.

DID THE FLEMING FAMILY ORIGINATE FROM THE STEWARTSVILLE & PARKWOOD AREA AND RELOCATE TO CLYMER & SAMPLE RUN?

It is a thought packed full of mystery and intrigue. As one looks at the RootsWeb and the maps available of Indiana Co that was made and published in the middle 1800s - there is only one Craig owned area to be found and that parcel is not in Stewartsville. There are now Craigs shown in the immediate area now known as Parkwood. However, as you study the map you will find the FLEMINGS owned land all around the area. Over the later half of the 1800s and early 1900s up to about 1960, Parkwood and the Craig name were the same. One would think that as many of them living there they would have named it Craigville rather than Parkwood. Today, 2002, there are few if any Craigs at Parkwood.

WHY WAS STEWARTSVILLE CHANGED TO PARKWOOD?

The FLEMING families seemed to disappear from Armstrong County and move or migrate back East to areas in Green Township like, Cookport, the Learn Settlement and Clymer, PA. The United Methodist Church grave yard in Cookport is made up of mostly Flemings. However, again, there are few Flemings to be found in either area.

THE HARRY BLAIR FLEMING FAMILY

Sometime during the 1940s to 50s something happened to cause a rift of some sort amongst the Fleming boys. They were together while Harry Blair worked the Bennett Farm in Indiana, PA. Not long after the boys began to marry off, HAROLD Blair Fleming moved himself and his family to Erie, PA. Although there are no exact dates for these moves, Charles Fleming, shortly after the war was over moved to California and worked in the timber industry there.

Hannah Jemimah Fleming, this writer's mother, along with the boys paid a visit to Erie and Harold Blair and his family. It wasn't too long after that Harold Blair moved his family back and moved into a huge home in Cherry Tree, PA. He joined the family in running a saw mill near there. In 1950 or 51, Hannah Jemimah and her two boys left on a trip for California on a train. They left the day after school left out and would return just before the start of classes in the fall. Robert Blair Craig had just completed classes at the Dixonville Grade School [8^th grade] and was to begin classes at the Green Township High School located in Commodore, PA.

Traveling light [limited clothing, suit cases or food], Hannah had packed up huge amounts of cheese sandwiches and snacks for food, they arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, about 10 or so days later. Phoenix was where John Henry Learn & Hannah Holmes Learn were living and they spent several weeks visiting with them. Hannah Holmes was directly related to Hannah's mother - Sir name of HOLMES. The then left Phoenix and traveled West to California and then directly North to the Red Wood Forest area of Northern California. This is where her brother, Charles Fleming and family, lived. It seems that "Dot" was his wife's name. Hannah and boys spent a couple of weeks with Charles and then left for the trip back home to Dixonville.

BACK HOME IN DIXONVILLE

When Hannah and her boys arrived back home they were surprised to find that dad, Robert LeRoy Craig, had dug and laid pipe about 100 yards down the hill to the spring and installed running water to the house. It was an amazing project. Being that the hill was so steep and the water had to be drawn such a long distance, he had installed the pump half way up the hill and built a shelter for it. He had it hooked up so that water would be drawn half way up - and a return pipe would allow water to fall/drain back down to the spring causing a vacuum. This allowed the pump to have enough force to be able to push the water the rest of the way up to the house. In the 1950s this was a scientific achievement.

Hannah & LeRoy did everything possible to bring up their boys with a good work ethic. The boys were responsible for making sure there was water at the sink for mother and that there was plenty of wood for the cook stove and at the heater in the front room. It was some years after they moved to Dixonville that running water was installed. Prior to that water was drawn from a hand pump located just off the front porch of the house. Usually two 3 gallon buckets of water would do the job - unless, of course, it was Tuesday. On Monday evening a huge tub in the basement would need to be filled and a 10 gallon boiler on top of the stove would be filled for wash day. Tuesday was the day of choice for Wash Day because work wasn't allowed on Sunday.

Not long after Hannah and the boys returned back from their trip to see Uncle Charles in California, he pulled up and moved back and settled near the family. All the Harry Blair family having been brought back together once again they worked together to build and operate a saw mill not far from Cherry Tree, PA. The writer here has not idea, and would make no suggestion that Hannah was the drawing force that brought Harold Blair back from Erie, PA, or, brought back Uncle Charles from California. All that is sure, it wasn't long after these visits that they did return.

MADGE ALBERTA HOLMES

In 1901, Harry Blair Fleming married Madge Alberta Holmes. Madge was the daughter of Dorcie Dolphus Holmes and Mary Catherine Mentch of Penn Run, PA. Madge had "sugar" - was diabetic, and after injuring her foot blood poisining set in. Operations, starting with a toe, then the romoval of her foot, then the leg and finally up as high on the hip as possible - all efforts were defeated in stopping the gangerine that finally took her life. She died June 15, 1945. It wasn't long after this that Harry Blair returned to his profession as a lumberman. It was never said if it was Madge that prevented Harry from working in timber. One would assume so in that this is what he did as a young boy and this is what he did as long as he was able to work.

After Harry Blair Fleming left Bennett farm and moved to Cherry Tree, PA, timber was all he worked at. Just before retiring Harry did work timber in Clearfield County, PA, for a time. The writer knows nothing of the reasons for this - or if the Fleming sons were with him while he worked in Clearfield, PA.

HAROLD BLAIR FLEMING

Visits by the LeRoy Craig family to the big house of Uncle Harold were frequent. The boys loved to play with Harold's five boys and Harold would cut LeRoy, Bob & Ken's hair. The relationship was really great between Hannah and her brother Harold. Some time passed and the day that Harold became sick caused the relationship to change. Harold had developed a brain tumor and had several operations in an attempt to save his life. It was about this time that Hannah, never having been a bad girl, non-the-less, she found religion in a big way. One might put it all together and believe that the pending loss of her brother, Harold, had a life changing effect on her. Harold, having been sick for a time, had to quit the lumber business and he purchased a Exxon Service Station at Cherry Tree, PA, and made an effort to provide a living doing that. Hannah and her family made several trips to Cherry Tree while Harold was sick and it is recalled one time when she may have gone at the wrong time. Harold told Hannah, sitting in the car at the service station, to come and visit any time. She would be welcome. "But, please, when you come to visit, leave your religion at home!" There was no mistaking this and it is as if the writer lived it just yesterday. Memories of Uncle Harold cease at this point.

The other boys, Hayes & Charles and their families finally settled near Rossiter, PA. They continued working..... [A work in progress 3/5/2002]

Why no early Craigs at Stewartsville - Flemings to the north.

The Indiana lumberman in photo?

How did Robert LeRoy Craig meet up with Hannah Jemimah Fleming?

Did Harry Blair Fleming float timber down Dixon Creek?

How did Harry Blair meet Madge Alberta Holmes?

Either Harry Blair had to travel all the way to Cookport PA from between Stewartsville and Shelocta to meet Madge or the Holmes for some reason were visiting the Parkwood area?

The given names are so similar in families, IE., Harry Blair Fleming, Harold Blair, his son, Robert Blair Craig, Harry Blair Fleming's first grandson. Blairsville? It is a fact that Hannah Jemimah was raised on a farm up over high hill from Clymer. How much of a town was Clymer at that time.

Recount the story of Hannah climbing the forbidden huge, house size rock on the way from the farm to Clymer to sell eggs.

Who is Shirley Bartlett?

When was the Indiana County Interactive Map made?