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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pulaski County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1889.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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James H. Flemming, real-estate dealer, surveyor and civil engineer, of Little Rock, is a native of Shelby County, Ill., and a son of Peter and Anna (Owens) Flemming, natives of Ohio and Tennessee, respectively. Mr. Flemming went to Illinois in 1829, and engaged in farming. He helped locate the county seat at Shelbyville, and was subsequently elected sheriff, serving in that capacity for eighteen years, after which he was elected county judge, and then judge of the criminal court, thus continuing for twenty-four years. In all, he held offices of public trust and confidence for forty-two years. He died while in the latter position, and when returning home after a day’s session, being stricken with heart disease and dying without a struggle. Mr. and Mrs. Flemming were the parents of eleven children, eight of whom are living, and two of whom are residents of this State: James H. (our subject) and Mary (wife of S. G. Oiler, a resident of Saline County). Mrs. Flemming died about 1857, at the age of forty-one. James H. was reared in Illinois on a farm, until about twenty years old, after which he clerked in a store nearly a year, and was then elected constable of Jordan Creek district before he was twenty-one, but qualified after reaching his twenty-first birthday. He was deputy sheriff and constable under his father for six years. Coming south, he engaged in trading horses and mules, and later entered into farming in Hernando County, Miss., for eighteen months, when the war broke out and he returned home, as it happened, on the last train on the Illinois Central, which ran from Memphis to Cairo. He then took a contract to furnish Messrs. Hall & Durkee ties for the railroad which was being built east of Shelbyville, and which is now known as the Illinois & St. Louis Railroad. About a year later, he came south and located in Devall’s Bluff and Little Rock, and took a contract from the Government to furnish the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad with general supplies, which position he held from July, 1864, until the close of the war. After this he embarked in the mercantile business at Lonoke and Austin, and then purchased a place down the river, and resumed farming a few years. Taking a contract subsequently to build seventy miles of railroad for the Arkansas Central (now the Arkansas Midland), he constructed only thirty miles, as no remuneration was forthcoming and he was obliged to give it up. He was then occupied in farming for two years, after which he was appointed deputy sheriff. In 187- Mr. Flemming was nominated by the Republican Central Committee as candidate for circuit clerk, and was elected, but was counted out by the Democrats. Mr. Flemming is a strong Republican, and is a member of the Lincoln Club of Little Rock, and of the county central committee; he was appointed a delegate from Little Rock to the Liberal Republican National convention at Cincinnati. Of late years he has been a planter, but is now disposing of his stock, and is devoting his time to surveying and civil engineering. He is one of the prime movers in building the Little Rock & Choctaw Railroad, of which he is also one of the directors, and is a member of the Society of Surveyors, Engineers and Architects of Arkansas. Mr. Flemming was married in May, 1877, to Mrs. Cornelia A. Cook. They are the parents of one boy, James, now deceased. Mrs. Flemming is connected with the Second Presbyterian Church.

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This family biography is one of 156 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pulaski County, Arkansas published in 1889.  For the complete description, click here: Pulaski County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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