A family history of the Flemings who came from Perthshire in 1843 to settle in Derby Township, Grey County. We follow the family into the mid 1900s as they dispersed across North America..
Further, Scottish clan maps do not list a Fleming clan. We note, however, that the clans Stewart and Murray are present in the Perthshire area, where Alexander Fleming and his wife, Jean Stewart, lived in the early 1800s. See the Scottish clan map on Wikipedia.
What are tartans, and why are they associated with clans?
The table of contents links to each chapter, and the text is searchable by keyword. The book can be found most easily by searching by title: Flemings of Derby Township. The subject headings may also be helpful: Fleming family, family history, genealogy, Derby – Township – Grey County, Owen Sound – Ontario, Canada West, Church of the Disciples of Christ, Pioneer Life 1840-1880, Logierait, – Perthshire – Scotland, Scottish emigration to Canada, Christopher Alexander (C.A.) Fleming, Roy F. Fleming.
The Creative Commons license for usage rights is for Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. Material may not be used for commercial purposes or remixed for distribution. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
The print book and some e-copies may also be viewed at the following:
Toronto Public Library, Reference Library – one print copy
Owen Sound & North Grey Union Public Library (https://www.osngupl.ca/) – two copies for in-library use.
Grey Roots Museum and Archives, Owen Sound, ON (https://greyroots.com/) – two copies and one e-copy. Search for Flemings of Derby Township, 2022 year of creation. Contact the archive.
Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre, Southampton, ON (https://www.brucemuseum.ca/) – one print copy and one e-copy. Search for Flemings of Derby Township, date =2022.. Contact the archive.
Archives and Collections, University of Guelph – one print copy
Ontario Genealogical Society (https://ogs.on.ca/) – the Society Library is kept at the Humanities and Social Sciences Division at the Toronto Reference Library.
Carrying a sectional boat – 1914 – Rod and Gun in Canada
While researching the life of C.A. (Christopher Alexander) Fleming (1857-1945) for the Flemings of Derby Township: A family history, I learned that C.A. had designed and built a boat that could be separated into parts for easier travelling on hunting trips. (1) But I had no further information on shape or size or even usefulness. By good fortune, I came upon an article that C.A. wrote in 1914 describing the boat and wondered if this type of boat is made today.
C.A. Fleming, educator, publisher and banker in Owen Sound, Ontario, was at heart a “master hobbyist,” as we know from his biographer, Dorothea Deans. She drew attention to C.A.’s skills with all tools, adeptness with machinery, and early adoption of camera and radio. “He had the inventiveness of a pioneer,” she wrote. (2)
He was also an avid outdoorsman, travelling into remote areas for hunting with the Striker Club in the late 1800s and early 1900s. My surprise was to find the article he wrote in 1914 in Rod and Gun in Canadain the Internet Archive.
Modestly, he explained in the opening paragraph: “The writer began experimenting about two years ago on boats that could be easily made by any handyman, that were light and tight, easily transported by train or vehicle, easily portaged, stored in a small space, and quite safe for any inexperienced person to handle.; and succeeded in building one that filled the conditions aimed at.” (3)
In the article, C.A. gave detailed instructions and parts lists for constructing a 13-foot-7-inch boat with a 42-inch beam weighing about 90 lbs. It could also serve as a motorboat with the addition of the Waterman outboard motor.
C.A. claimed that taking the boat apart was nearly dead simple: “… [I]t was very little trouble to take apart —we had only to take out eight bolts and separate it into three sections. We found no trouble in carrying it back two miles through the bush to a lake where the deer were taking to the water. The portable boat and the portable engine made a fine combination for the hunting grounds.” Being in segments, the boat, he found, was easy to load onto a train, could be packed with camping goods, and could be carried in portages.
James and John – “the twins” – died within a year of each other: John in Kilsyth in 1909 and James in Owen Sound in 1910. John had nine children, all living in 1931, of whom only Alfred (or T.A.) had his career in the United States. The others stayed in Ontario. In contrast, of James’ nine surviving children, only Mary Ella [Wyllie] was nearby in Kilsyth. Alexander, his eldest son, was in Regina, Saskatchewan. The others had headed mainly to California.
The data gathered in this posting are about James and John’s children and adult grandchildren. The 1931 Canada Census and the 1930 U.S. Census indicate the financial well-being of the families and single independents. Surprisingly, of the 41 families and singles in this tabulation, only one person was unemployed. A few worked independently (7); most were wage earners, especially in John’s line. For those who owned their houses – and most did – values ranged from $1,000 to 35,000. Values for the seven U.S. properties are at the higher end. In Canada, rural and small-town living lowered the average. Radio sets were in nearly every home in cities but missing on farms and some apartments.
In reviewing the lives of the descendants of Alexander Fleming and Jean Stewart, we begin with the families of their daughters: Isobel (1825-1917), married to Abraham Finch, and Janet (1828-1918), to James Agnew. They and several of their children had died before 1931, but we can see through the 1931 Census how the younger ones and their children were faring in the strained economic times of the early 1930s. Nearly all were far from Grey County in diverse occupations across the continent – only a couple were still farming. Several owned their houses, mostly made of wood, and some had radios.
The Finches
The effervescent Bella [Herald], who had moved to Ontario’s Parry Sound district, died in 1923. Her beloved adopted son William Herald, who had survived the battles in Europe, settled in Parry Sound to work as a salesman in a general store and begin a family with Annie Lang.
Isobel’s daughter Jessie[Trout] was 80 years old in 1931 and widowed. She and her daughter Ella (Isabella) resided at 78 Dawson Street in Wiarton, where they shared an eight-room wood house valued at $1000. Ella was 57 and living on “income,” perhaps from savings from her years in Toronto as a public school teacher. There was no radio in their house.
Alexander Heneage Finch, a Disciple minister and Manitoba farmer, died in 1920. Widowed Sophie (de la Ree) lived in Winnipeg with her daughter’s family: Thomas Babb, Beatrice, and the four-year-old Reginald. The Babbs rented their five-room wood house on Ashburn Street, and they did have a radio. Thomas taught, possibly at a high school.
Most of Sophie’s and Alexander’s children were alive in 1931, all but two residing in Alberta.
Horace, an insurance agent, had a house for his wife and two daughters in Wetaskiwin, AB., near Edmonton.
Bertram, a farmer in Minitonas in the Swan River region of Manitoba where he had grown up, worked for his father-in-law, John Smith.
Percival was a salesman for a lumber yard in Viking, AB. He, his wife and daughter, rented a wood house and were among the few with a radio.
Norman managed a lumber yard in Clyde AB, where he owned a four-room house for his wife and two daughters. They had a radio.
Alexander was a carpenter in house-building in Mirror, AB. His small family also lived in a wooden house they owned. Alexander was currently out of work.
Carlos “Carl” managed a retail lumber yard in Irma, AB. Single, he lodged with a family.
Cecil was not enumerated, but other records suggest Alberta or Manitoba.
Ruby Mae, married to Martin Danard, was probably living in Flin Flon, MB, where three children were born. The family was missed in the 1931 census.
James, at age 25, was in Winnipeg, married, and working as an electrician. He and Katherine rented a two-room apartment and had a radio.
Isobel’s next son William died from influenza in Winnipeg in 1918. Several of his and Martha’s children lived in Winnipeg – Earnest, Robert, and Olive [Rhodes] are three who were enumerated. Others, though alive, were missed.
Excerpt from 1931 Canada Census – Schedule for Population – North Grey, Derby, Ontario
The event all genealogists in Canada have been waiting for has arrived: Library and Archives Canada released its digitization of 234,678 images of the 1931 Canada Census on June 1, 2023. The collection is open for browsing by location – province, district and sub-district. (1) Eight days later, Ancestry, using its Handwriting Recognition software, delivered a searchable indexed database to subscribers. Family Search will soon follow with its index. Images may also be browsed by province and district at FindMyPast.
The enumerators recorded details on more than 10.3 million people. Canada’s population after the First World War had grown 18% from the 8.7 million of 1921. Many immigrants were from Europe, attracted to agriculture in the Prairie provinces. At the same time and especially in Ontario the urban population surpassed the rural as men and women left farms to work in factories and offices. Trouble appeared in the late 1920s with crop failures in the west and the stock market crash of 1929 in the east. By 1931 the Great Depression had taken hold with rising unemployment, homelessness and hunger. By 1933 unemployment was 33%. During this time, the Prairies were beset by drought and insects to bring on the Dirty Thirties. Not all were devastated: property owners and people with jobs fared much better. These outcomes are captured in the data on house values, income, and employment. (2)
The Census provides a snapshot of how families were managing across the nation. Questions concerned housing, income, employment, ethnicity, nationality, education – and, very interestingly, possession of a radio.
The 1850s was the decade of railway fever in Canada West. Every community from the tiniest hamlet campaigned to have a railway line – and the citizens of the Township of Derby were among them. We don’t know if the Flemings invested in railway bonds, but they must have followed the local Council meetings, and they eventually benefited from improved access to markets for their produce and greater ease of travel.
Image: The Toronto Grey and Bruce, Toronto and Nipissing, and Lake Simcoe Junction Railways 1877. Adapted by Rod Clarke from map of the Province of Ontario by James Campbell & Son of Toronto, 1874. The TG&BR extension from Teeswater to Kinloss was never built. Map also shows Northern Railway Toronto-Barrie-Collingwood-Meaford.
In the 1850s, railway building was booming. Over 2,000 miles of track were laid in the provinces of British North America. [i] By 1859 the Grand Trunk Railway ran from Quebec City, through Montreal and Toronto, to Sarnia, with extensions to Chicago, Illinois and Portland, Maine. Its rival, the Great Western, had lines from Niagara Falls to Windsor through Hamilton and London and connecting to Toronto. The Northern Railway (previously the Toronto, Simcoe and Huron Railroad) reached Collingwood from Barrie in 1855.[ii] Jennie Fleming took this route for her trip to Toronto in 1869.[iii] But the great triangle of the Queen’s Bush along Lake Huron, the west half of Georgian Bay and south along the Garafraxa Road was unserved.
Derby Township became involved with railway mania in July 1857 when Mr. Carney and Mr. W.A. Stephens came as a deputation from a railroad committee in Owen Sound – “to solicit a grant of money to aid in procuring the passing of the ByLaw for taking stock in the Toronto and Owen Sound Central Railway” (T&OSCR). Council was immediately enthusiastic and moved to set up a fund of 12 Pounds and 10 Shillings towards getting “sanction” from the ratepayers to buy ₤ 100,000. Further, Reeve Sam Jones and the Council expressed their thanks to the deputation “for affording them an opportunity of expressing their desire to see Railway communication afforded to the County of Grey and for honoring them with the first call for pecuniary assistance towards that object.” [iv] The proposal, complete with routes, costs and benefits, and considerations, was documented by J.W. Tate in the Report on the proposed route of the Toronto and Owen Sound central railway.[v] The proposed route would run from Weston, up the Humber Valley to Mono Mills, across to Orangeville, north to Chatsworth and from there either along the Sydenham Valley through part of Derby Township or along another stream to the north of Owen Sound.[vi]
Excerpt from a photograph of the 1927 Fleming Family Reunion held at Springfield Farm, Kilsyth, ON. (Fleming Family Papers)
People have asked us: “why did you write a book about the Flemings of Derby Township?” Why did Ruth, a Fleming descendant with a trunk full of family records, and I, a friend who loves history, spend years compiling a four-inch thick book of stories, photographs and charts? One person remarked that family histories are mere vanity projects, suggesting, I submit, a poverty of outlook. There is much to be learned from past generations, as TV viewers of the PBS program Finding Your Roots know very well. Knowing the stories can be inspirational and motivational.
Some people have a memory store of recollections about their forebears – at least their grandparents and sometimes great-grandparents. Sadly, most do not and may barely know the stories of their parents’ lives. Deprived of stories about their families, children must make their lives without the grounding of knowing who they are — a loss of wisdom and understanding.
Indigenous peoples seem more attuned to ancestral knowledge — learning from the stories and traditions passed from generation to generation, how earlier generations survived their journeys and their times of deprivation, how they found spiritual connection and celebrated life.
The Seventh Generation Principle from an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy holds that to be a good ancestor, people should look forward seven generations to make decisions that will benefit their descendants. Looking back seven generations, we can ponder the legacy brought about by the actions of our ancestors. [https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/seventh-generation-principle ]
The answers for the Flemings are evident in the family history. In 1843, Alexander and Jean left their ancestral home in Perthshire for the wilderness of Upper Canada. After seven years of preparation, they were ready for the voyage. The first years were hard: they were in their early forties, trans-Atlantic crossings were perilous, and pioneer life was harsh. But with vision and resoluteness, they and their nine children succeeded, bequeathing customs, values and opportunities to their descendants.
We wrote the book to tell this story through four generations — as a legacy of knowledge and learning. Distribution to family members who had pre-ordered (about 150) took place in December 2022.
The book is also available at Ginger Press in Owen Sound at $85 CDN plus tax. Use the Contact Page at Ginger Press to inquire about ordering or contact me by leaving a comment to this blog post.
It’s here! After many years of research by Ruth Larmour and Gwen Harris, much transcribing of original documents, countless hours building the family tree in Ancestry, much fact-checking, many interviews with descendants, many searches through land records, newspapers, directories, and other archives, much reference to written histories, the long-awaited Flemings of Derby Township: A family history has been printed.
It is available for purchase at Ginger Press in Owen Sound. Price is $85 CDN plus tax. Use the Contact Page to place an inquiry about ordering or contact me by leaving a comment to this blog post.
The project dates from the early 1900s when Roy Fleming, an artist and teacher in Ottawa, and his cousin C.A. Fleming, a businessman and educator in Owen Sound, had the idea to compile a family history. As members of the generation of the firstborn in Canada, they were imbued with the family sagas of trials and triumph. From their fathers, they delved into their Scottish roots in Perthshire’s, Logeirait parish and from their uncle, William, captured the recollections of the voyage to Quebec in 1843 and pioneer life Canada West. In Vaughan Township they farmed leased land, and with their earnings, bought land in Derby Township where they settled in 1850. Theirs is the story of determination, resolve, faith, resourcefulness, and good fortune.
This family history draws on many original letters and earlier family manuscripts supplemented and enriched by extensive research to describe the times and conditions and to gather biographical information about family members over four generations. In Canada, the period covered is roughly 1850 to 1920. The story follows the Flemings to many parts of Canada and the United States where they engaged in many different professions.
The book is richly illustrated with photographs, sketches, and maps. It is thoroughly indexed and footnoted. One might even say it is encyclopedic. This video provides a quick taste and view of what to expect.
“We set sail probably on the second or third of May 1843 from Greenock, the port of Glasgow”– wrote William Fleming in his recollections of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Quebec with his parents and seven siblings. William was six years old at the time. “It was a three-masted vessel,” he remembered and, “The ship had a general cargo of merchandise, the crew and passengers numbered some fifty to sixty.”
All who read William’s emigration story wish his account had been longer. What was it like to travel in steerage, what were the conditions, what did they have in provisions? We can can get a sense from a superb reproduction of an 1840s emigrant vessel, The Dunbrody, that is moored in New Ross, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Built in Quebec in 1845 the Dunbrody was a three-masted ship with a registered tonnage of 485. Lloyd’s Register tells us that it was made of oak, elm, and “hamkmatack” – tamarack. Lloyd’s assessed the ship as A1. (1) In 1849, when it sailed for New York, it carried 176 passengers.
Dunbrody, Irish emigrant ship, New Ross, Co. Wexford. 1845
The Flemings sailed on the Jeanie Deans out of Glasgow – a three-masted barque in May 1843. It was 319 tons – a bit smaller than the Dunwoody, built in 1841, also in Quebec, and was “sheathed with yellow metal.” According to Lloyd’s Register, the ship was made from black birch, oak, and tamarack and graded as A1. (1) The Jeanie Deans carried 65 passengers and 10 crew on that voyage. (2)
Typically (as we learn from Cian T. McMahon’s book, The Coffin Ship), emigrant ships had a forecastle deck at the front, the main deck in the middle, and the poop at the rear. The poop deck was reserved for officers and ”cabin” passengers. Below the poop deck there might be a hospital and the ship’s galley. Steerage travellers were allowed on the main deck at designated times to cook their meals on an open-fire grate. For most of the day they were confined below the main deck – or ‘tween deck” – in a long room accessed through hatches from the deck. When the seas were rough, the hatches were nailed shut to prevent flooding, but this also closed off air and heightened the misery below deck. Sleeping and living arrangements were cramped.
Jean Agnew (1862–1950) and her cousin Robert Fleming (1860–1894) were the first two of the Fleming families in Kilsyth to emigrate to the United States. Over the fifty-year period 1880 to 1930, 22 of Alexander Fleming and Jean Stewart’s 70 grandchildren (33%) left Derby Township to try life across the border. All but four stayed in the USA. The female Flemings were as adventurous as the male – a 50/50 split. Most were between the ages of 20 to 40. (1)
Outing to Ocean Park, CA. Bottom left, Minerva Fleming talking to Christina Fleming. Jean [Walmsley] on the far right. The woman behind Christina might be Jean Agnew. The men, Messrs Watson and Dury were friends of the Walmsleys. c. 1910 (Source: Fleming Family Photos)
The United States was a magnate for young people seeking better prospects for education, employment and income. The late 1860s to 1896 was the Gilded Age of rapid economic growth, technological invention, and industrial production. Hydroelectricity powered new factories. Cities in the East attracted new immigrants, and the West offered land and gold. Toronto, in 1891, with a population of 181,000, was small compared to the closest U.S. cities: Buffalo at 254,000, Detroit at 205,000, and Philadelphia at over one million.
Good news – the family history about the Flemings of Derby Township is nearly ready for the printer. We expect to ship the book in late October 2022 (changed from early).
The book is a comprehensive account of the family of Alexander Fleming and Jean Stewart who emigrated from Perthshire to Canada West in 1843 and settled in Derby Township, Grey County, in 1850. Their stories show the spirit and resolve of the Scottish migrants to shape lives with more opportunities for their children. This narrative describes the Flemings’ Scottish roots, the perils of emigration, pioneering life in Derby Township, Grey County, and the lives of their nine children and grandchildren around the turn of the century as they undertook new travels and challenges.
Sources include Ruth (Fleming) Larmour’s extensive collection of stories and papers, contributions by other Fleming descendants, genealogical records, land records, and many other historical sources in archives and libraries. This wealth of information led to a large book that is richly illustrated, extensively sourced, and complete with name index and subject index. The table of contents will provide a view of the coverage in this book.
This is a limited edition with a pre-publication price of $70 Canadian (plus shipping if needed) payable by cheque or etransfer. Please order by August 8 (changed from July 25, 2022), if you would like a copy at this favourable price.
Why would you buy this book?
Alexander Fleming and Jean Stewart are in your family tree.
One of your ancestors came to Canada from the Scottish Highlands in the 1800s.
You would like to learn more about the Fleming Family of Kilsyth and Owen Sound, Grey County.
You are interested in pioneer life in Ontario in the 1800s.
Your family lived in Vaughan Township, Derby Township, or Owen Sound in the 1800s.
You enjoy reading family histories with illustrations and personal accounts from the times.
Contact us through the button in the menu bar or by posting a comment.
The Flemings of Derby Township 
