George Fleming emigrated from England in the mid 1700s. The biographies of George Fleming and his wife Sidneh Rosine (or Rosin) are quoted from a document transcribed by Tina (Owens) Ward, "A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE COULTER FAMILY IN AMERICA"[1].
George Fleming was born in England around 1730. He came to America in the mid 1700s.
George Fleming, a native of England, sailed from Ireland for America with a gentleman named Kelso. The ship was wrecked three miles from the American coast (not known exactly), A day or two before it was lost a boy on the ship said he was troubled about a dream he had had the night before. He dreamed a rat bit off his big toe.
During a terrific storm the vessel was driven on the rocks. The boat's crew tore up planks and made a raft and put off, leaving the passengers to their fate.
George Fleming and his friend emptied their chest and threw their money overboard (they had a large amount of coin) and lashed their chests together, and tying a rope to them threw them overboard. They asked the boy who had the dream to jump into the chest, but could not prevail upon him to try, but he said "I will hold the rope for you." Fleming jumped and caught the chests, although he was large and heavy. Kelso, the more active of the two, jumped but missed them and sank to rise no more. The boy went down with the wreck.
Fleming floated to shore as the tide was coming in. One good swimmer swam to shore. One woman drifted to shore on the quarter deck with two children. One of them was dead from cold, one of them only was her own.[1]
Sidneh Rosine was born around 1735. Her first husband was named Brown. Brown and their oldest child were killed by Indians.
During Sidneh Rosin’s first marriage, while living in Pennsylvania with her husband and little son, a party of six Indians and one Frenchman disguised as an Indian came to the house on a day when the snow was falling at the commencement of winter and knocked at the door. One of them said, "Who keeps house?" Brown, deceived by the English words, opened the door and they rushed in and attacked the family.
Brown killed an Indian with a sickle, the rest emptied their rifles in him, he fell dead. They then took the two-year-old boy from his cradle and dashed out his brains against the jamb. They tied her, set fire to the barn where the cattle were and burned them. She said the moans and cries of the burning beasts were terrible to hear.
They took what clothing they wanted, caught a feather bed up and shook the feathers out into the storm, and laughed and yelled like demons to see the feathers fly. They then started with Sidneh Brown a prisoner, her house a desolation, her dead lying unburied, to meet some stronger parties of Indians who were going to Canada.
After some days their provisions gave out. One night when they were almost perishing with hunger a young Indian roasted a skin shot pouch, and dividing it offered it to the rest, all took some but an old Indian and the captive woman. When she refused to eat it the old Indian patted her on the back in approval of her powers of endurance.
She one day asked the Frenchman how he could be so cruel, saying she knew he was a white man and a Frenchman. "How do you know that?" he said. She replied, "I know you were white by your eyes, no Indian ever has blue eyes."
They crossed the Ohio River high up at a narrow point on a raft, and one of the Indians shot a buffalo across the river, which was considered by them a good shot.
She gave birth to a son on the wearisome journey. The Indians broke the ice on a stream and plunging him in returned him to his mother.
Afterward, having performed the entire journey on foot, they arrived a Quebec and sold her to the French for five French crowns (1 crowns equals $1.06 ½). The French governor kindly invited her to stay with his family which she did, she was always grateful for their kindness. They were Catholics. The daughter of the house, having by some means obtained a Protestant bible, asked Mrs. Brown to read it to her as she could read English.
In 1759 she was exchanged and tried to start home on foot, but one of her feet had been so badly injured with cold and the long journey on foot, that she gave out one day, at the same time Gen. Wolf’s army came up on their way to Quebec, and Gen Philip Schuyler, moved with noble generosity, took her back and told Gen. Wolf to send a surgeon to her. The surgeon sent an apprentice, but Schuyler would not be put off and told Gen. Wolfe her history, and that the surgeon must come himself. He sent the surgeon immediately and she was taken to a hotel for English officers, where she remained until well. Then with her babe she started for home again, as she said "to the old desolation".[1]
George Fleming and Sidneh (Rosine) Brown married and settled near Bulls Run, Virginia. Following the Revolutionary War they moved to Winsborough, South Carolina.
George's children:
- James Coulter
Sidneh's children:
- Unknown baby Brown
- Unknown boy Brown
George and Sidneh's children:
- Margaret (Fleming) Coulter
- Sidneh (Fleming) McClintock
George died around 1805. Sidneh about 1810. George and Sidneh are buried in Winsborough, South Carolina.
Margaret Fleming married Robert Stuart Coulter.