In 1834, Alexander Fleming, a young boy of eight years, known familiarly as Sandy, emigrated with his widowed mother, Lillias (nee Gregor), his two younger brothers, John and James, and his Gregor grandparents, Peter and Margaret, with their family of seven.  In one record, Sandy also mentions his half sister who also came. (Perhaps his father was a widower with one child, when Lillias married him.) They sailed on the “Alfred of Alloway”, which carried eight Scottish families on board. The voyage took nine weeks and three days. They were short of water, and the food was mostly fat pork and black bread,  with one bowl of oatmeal porridge in the morning. The following year they came to Puslinch.  

The Flemings and the Gregors were Scottish High­landers. John Fleming, Sandy's father, was a graduate of the College of Edinburgh in veterinary surgery, and Sandy grew up in West Calder, near Edinburgh. Sandy was proud that when he was six years old when the Great Reform Bill was passed in 1832. In Mid Calder a great celebration was organized to celebrate the passing of this important measure, and in this procession were Sandy and John Robertson, uncle of Chief Adam Robertson of Guelph, then a lad about the same age, both proudly displaying their colours, and contributing their share to the noisy portion of the general rejoicing. Within two years, John Fleming’s untimely death probably caused his widow to turn to her parents for support. She brought his veterinary books with her to Canada.

Shortly after they arrived in the Township, his mother also died, on lot 33 front concession  8, leaving the boys orphans; Sandy was too young to remember how his grandfather Gregor bought land with a half-finished log house It appears that his formal education was limited to his brief time in Scotland, and three winter sessions which he attended the local Puslinch school  At age 17 Fleming left his grandparents’ home, became a mill hand at a local grist mill near Guelph for $3 per month. Later he worked for John McFarlane on the second concession for some time. McFarlane was a tailor by trade, and went out making clothes for  settlers as far away as Guelph township Young Fleming would have been hired to work around the McFarlane farm while he was away. One of his tasks was representing his boss at logging bees, where he remembered being water-boss. In harvest season he experienced  the hard days spent cutting the crop with the grain cradle.

William Halligan sold Rear Concession 9,  Lot 16  to Alex Fleming in 1849. Three years later,  Sandy married his neighbor and long time friend’s  daughter, Janet Cockburn who was born in Scotland in 1832. She died in 1861 leaving him with four children. Sandy’s granddaughter, Jessie Beattie wrote in her  book A Walk through Yesterday a story that Sandy had told her.

"Twas on a night like this. The thermometer  had dropped below zero and for two days there was a biting wind. It still came in gusts but the cabin of logs was well-built and warm. The children had gone to their beds . We had put a bed in the butt for your grandmother two weeks before. We knew the end was near and I was with her every hour I could spare from my duties in the stables and what care I was able to give the children. Johnnie was eight, Cissy your mother was six, Jeannie was three, and Lily was but a few months. My Jeannie was a dainty and delicate as a lily. Her dark hair was spread out on either side of her fair young face. It was the consumption that had struck your Grandma. She was the third of her family to be taken with it. Three years of house-keepers after she died were enough. A strong fine young woman living with her grandparents two farms away, Janet McNaughton I had seen at a barn-raising. Her manners were polite and modest. I told her "My love is in the grave but I am looking for a mother for my children." Janet died at fifty two from a malignant tumour.

 

The children of Sandy and Jeannie were John (born c 1853) who died at age 24;Cissy married neighbor Frank Beattie and moved to Blair; west of Cambridge ON.  Jeannie married  Alex. Morrison, and died in Montana; Jane married Hugh Reid, and lived in Aberfoyle and Galt (Cambridge). Sandy and Janet McNaughton’s children were Alex and Mary. Either Lilly or Mary married John Dixon and lived in Hamilton. Alex, married Mary McPhee and remained on the farm until his death after 1885.  Their younger son, Peter, also lived on the homestead. . Sandy’s  third wife was daughter of John Blair of Cumnock.       

Of Sandy’s siblings we know little. John, in 1906 was a prosperous citizen in Mt. Forest and James, who the same year, had recently died in Dakota;

He was probab­ly the best-known man in the township in his era, being possessed of a wonderful memory, which he retained until the end of his long and eventful life.  He reached the hundred years and could tell many tales about the hardships of the pioneers, the exciting times at many of the logging bees. He remembered the names of the ox teamsters at the bee at which he was water-boss and he noted that Peter McNaughton Sr. was  grog-boss. 

He also remembered well the first murder committed in Puslinch, in the month of March, when Buntin stabbed Allen.  That took place at Flynn's Tavern on the Brock road.  He got off on a plea of self-defense which was proved to be correct.  He also remembered the first settlers in Badenoch settlement:  Donald McLean, Peter Grant and Alex McBean, who had come in 1831, followed soon after by the John Clark family, the Peter McLean Sr. families and William Kennedy Sr. came to Badenoch. The first male child born in Badenoch was Malcolm Clark, and the first female child,  Jane Nichol were born after Sandy came to the community. Malcolm Clark had the first frame barn in Badenoch, framed by Zak Putloe, who died in a shanty with old age on Matthew Elliott's farm.  The first horse that was owned in the Badenoch settlement was owned by  Peter Edington.

Sandy retired and left his son Alex to manage the farm. His obituary summarizes his long and eventful life. 

FLEMING, ALEXANDER