HOW MARGRETTA STOPPED THE TRAIN AND PUT FLEMING ON THE MAP
Every family needs a family story, and this is one of ours, how Margretta Fleming saved the train. Margretta's father was James Fleming, and the lived where John and Jane Fleming brought their family–those children who weren't married yet–in Barlow Township, just east of Barlow.
About 1845, a corporation was formed to build the Cincinnati and Marietta railroad The first train ran in 1858. At the east end it ran through Athens and Vincent to Marietta. And it ran through the original Flaming farm, now owned by son Jim's widow Margaret, since Jim died in 1851.
The train, being designed for no more than a very low grade, ran across rivers and gullies on wooden trestles. And since the trains in those early days burned wood to heat their boilers, they belched smoke and not uncommonly sparks and burning embers. Fires were common along the track, and it was not unheard of for a trestle to catch fire. This was what happen sometime in about 1859. Margretta was out walking, or maybe she was waiting for the t rain to go by so that she could wave to the passengers. Whatever the reason, she discovered that the bridge over the gully was on fire from an ember coughed out by the last train to pass through. Knowing the coming train was in danger, she ran down the track and hailed the train, thus averting a possible calamity. In honor of her quick thinking, the railroad established a station at the farm.
Thomas Fleming, Margretta's brother, was married on April 8, 1858 and acquired part of the farm, but the portion that contained the station was still in his mother's name on the 1875 plat book. When he acquired that part of the farm, he built a late Victorian frame house near the station. The house still stands and can easily bee seen from State Route 550 if you look south from the signs that say Fleming. Later, after the railroad was abandoned in the early 1920's a postoffice and general store were built at the highway. For years, the sign on it said "Fleming Mall." It5 is now a real estate office. The postal designation still exists, but the mail for Fleming, as well as Barlow, are now handled by the Vincent Post Office. So Fleming exists as a point on the Ohio map, and two signs facing away from each other only a hundred yards apart on State Route 550 seven miles west of Marietta and about four miles east of Barlow. It is not even a village, but simply a rural post office.
But we have not finished with our story of Margretta Fleming. She was one of those victims of the huge loss of the male population from the Civil War, for she never married. She and her sister Sarah studied art. I don't know if any of their paintings exist, but they encouraged the painting talents of their nieces, Ella Fleming Turner, Hattie Fleming McDonald, and Maggie Fleming Smith, whose paintings are still in the family. They were also woodcarvers, and a chair and settee set were owned by Dr. Wilbur Turner, and I suppose still by he granddaughter Debra. We were always told that there was a piano in the possession of the descendants of Robert Flemming, Margretta's brother. She or Sarah or both took a millinery course in Iowa and settled in Van Wert, Ohio, where their sister Jennie Fleming Cavett had gone to live. They opened a shop in Van Wert and lived there until they died in 1916 and 1917 respectively.
The other question is what did Margretta use to flag down the train? My grandmother, Hattie, liked the story that she had taken off her petticoat and waved it. And she knew her aunt so she should know. But a check of the dates tells us that Margretta was only 11 or 12 when she stopped the train. So it is not a story of a woman saving a train. It is a story of a young girl saving a train.