Frederick James Fleming was born to Thomas and Mary Ann Fleming on 23 February 1880 in Oxbow, Maine. Thomas was quite an elderly father, having been born in Canada in 1821. He immigrated to the United States in 1860 and married Mary Ann Botting, who was 21 years his junior and whose family was one of the earliest settlers of Oxbow.
Fred was the youngest of eight children and he spent nearly his entire life living in Oxbow. The birth record below says that he was the sixth child, but it was submitted by his brother and presumably well after the fact. All I can guess is that Fred was the youngest of the six surviving children at that point. Despite his birth record (see image below) saying "Frederic," every other time I've seen his full name in print it is spelled "Frederick." The vast majority of the time, however, he's referred to as "Fred."
On the 1880 census, he was listed as "David," which I can't think to contribute to anything other than human error. That was clearly his family on lines 31–40 in the image below and Fred was the only four-month-old child at the time of that census.
By the time of the 1900 census, only the three youngest children remained at home—Fred and his twin older brothers, Wilmon and William. Two nephews, Alfred and Harold, who were the sons of Fred's older brother George were also living with them. I haven't been able to figure out exactly who their boarder, Nellie Taylor, was, but I would guess that she was a relative of George's wife, Eliza Taylor. See lines 93–100 in the image below:
In 1905, Fred married Vesta Carson in Ashland, Maine. The front and back of their marriage record is below:
The couple's only child, Helen, was born on 24 September in 1906 in Oxbow. In 1910, the young family was living with Fred's mother, Mary, who was now widowed. George and his two children Alfred and Harold were also living on the farm. See lines 28–34 in the image below:
Fred went through the bankruptcy process, culminating in a discharge from bankruptcy in late 1915.
Fred did his duty around the time of World War I and registered for the draft.
In 1918, the county decided to build a road between Masardis, Maine and Oxbow. $5,000 was contributed from Masardis residents and $1,000 from Oxbow residents. The Kennebec Journal published the tax assessments made to the individual tax-payers and you can see in the excerpt below that Fred and two of his brothers had to chip in for it.
By 1920, Fred, Vesta and Helen were living on their own in Oxbow. Vesta's brother, Harry, and Fred's brother, George, were also living with them. See lines 83–86 in the image below:
Here's a note from the Oxbow local news in spring of 1925.
Helen suffered poor health for several years and passed away on 22 October 1926 at the farm in Ashland, Maine were Fred was working.
The 1930 census is the only one on which Fred is living anywhere but Oxbow. Now 50, he and Vesta were renting half of a duplex in Ashland. See lines 56–57 in the image below:
By 1935, the couple had moved back to Oxbow and that's where they appeared on the 1940 census on lines 38–39:
The following article is just a mention of Fred attending a meeting of the Umcolcus Grange (badly misspelled in the article). All three members of the family held officer positions in the grange over the years:
At age 70, Fred made his final appearance on the census. He and Vesta were listed on lines 16–17 in the image below:
This 1952 article shows that Fred remained active in the grange through at least 1952, serving the next year as "gatekeeper":
Despite being in his mid-70s Fred served as road commissioner for several years in the mid-1950s, as evidenced by the following three newspaper articles.
Fred passed away on 26 March 1958, probably narrowly avoiding another term as road commissioner! His obituary was published in the Bangor Daily News:
Fred was buried in Swett Cemetery with his daughter, Helen. Vesta joined them five years later.
If you see any mistakes or know of information that isn't included here, please