Benoni Fleming (1765-02-18 – 1838-09-04)ref and Louisa Squires (1765 – after 1846)ref are purportedly the parents of Moses Fleming and thus my 5th-great-grandparents. These parents are often claimed and fit the known facts, but I am dissatisfied with the paucity of real evidence, even a citation to a somewhat credible secondary source. See Family below for discussion.
Benoni was born in Cornwall, Connecticut the son of Thomas Fleming and Mary Dean.ref ref Louisa’s ancestry has not been traced. She testified that she was aged 73 in 1839-03-01ref and 78 on 1843-09-12ref, from which the birth year above is inferred, although she stated that she did not know her birthday. The deposition also gives their marriage date as 1784-11-28, and in Cornwall. Other statements describe the widow Louisa as very poor and “infirm”ref in her old age.
Benoni served in the Revolutionary War for 7 months and in the War of 1812 for 1 yearref. There was a protracted case over his widow trying to receive pension benefits for the former, due to difficulty proving that, and when, they had lawfully married.
The pension file depositions say that Benoni and Louisa had 11 sons and 4 daughters.ref The only one named is Anna, and it was her and her husband’s testimony that gave those specific counts.
The 1800 census shows Benoni Fleming in Essex County, New York, which is the county Moses reported he was born in in an 1855 census. He has 4 boys under 10 living with him. There are no other Fleming families in the county, nor anywhere nearby. This is all very suggestive, but more direct proof would be nice. By 1820, Benoni had moved west to the vicinity of Lysander, NY, where he died in 1838. I assume Moses did not move with him.
There are lists of claimed children of Benoni and Louisa. Excepting Anna, none appear to be directly supported, so this collection is highly tentative:
This is less than half their stated total number.
This Fleming line has not been traced beyond Benoni’s father Thomas. The earliest record of Thomas seems to be his marriage to Mary Dean on 1762-08-14. Thomas served in the Revolutionary War in Burrall’s Regiment in the Continental Armyref, which was captured on 1776-05-19 in Canada. Beyond 1776 I can find no trace of him. He may have perished in Canadian custody.
This Fleming family haplogroup is apparently R1b-CTS241 also known as R1b-DF13; see the child Willis here. This is a large grouping and doesn’t narrow things down much.
There is a Fleming DNA project, but it is fairly chaotic and no testee is identifiably a member of this family.ref Several are SNP tested to within R1b-DF13, but there is not enough information to infer membership in any grouping. Fleming is a common name in many places so there may be a large number of unrelated clusters.
The surname Squires is not a common one, but it appears in many early records of Cornwall.ref It’s a reasonable assumption that these people are all related, and reasonable guesses may be made for parts of Louisa’s ancestry, but so far as I know no one has attempted this. A Jesse Squires and Lydia Clothier married on 1763-12-15 in Cornwall, not long before Louisa’s birth, possible candidates.
There is another Benoni Fleming (1768–1856) who was born in Delaware and moved to Fairmont, Virginia (now West Virginia). He is often confused with this Benoni. For example, a supposed photo of Benoni circulating on the Internet is in fact of this other person.
Only a narrow thread of ancestors is known. John Tidd was an immigrant from Hertfordshire of unknown parentage; the mother of his children may have been named Margaret.