Judge William Fleming (July 6, 1736 – February 15, 1824) was an American lawyer, jurist and political figure from

Cumberland County Cumberland County may refer to: Australia * Cumberland County, New South Wales * the former name of Cumberland Land District, Tasmania, Australia Canada *Cumberland County, Nova Scotia United Kingdom * Cumberland, historic county *Cumberl ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. He is often confused with his contemporary, Colonel William Fleming, who briefly served as Governor of Virginia during the

American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...

Biography

Judge Fleming received his education at The College of William & Mary, after which he started practicing law before the county courts. In 1772, he became a member of the

House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses () was the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly from 1619 to 1776. It existed during the colonial history of the United States in the Colony of Virginia in what was then British America. From 1642 to 1776, the Hou ...

, representing Cumberland County as his father John Fleming had done before him, and remained in this position until that body was terminated by the revolution. When the new state government of Virginia was instituted, he went back to Williamsburg as a member of the first House of Delegates. On December 10, 1778, he was elected a member of

Continental Congress The Continental Congress was a series of legislature, legislative bodies, with some executive function, for the Thirteen Colonies of British America, Great Britain in North America, and the newly declared United States before, during, and after ...

, but it was April 1779 before he reported there. In September, he took a leave of absence and returned to Virginia and the House of Delegates. In 1781, he was elected and began serving as a judge of the Virginia general court. Governor Beverley Randolph subsequently appointed Fleming to the Supreme Court of Appeals. When the court was reorganized in 1788, he was one of the five judges chosen for the new court. He became president and chief justice of the Court in 1809, a position he held until his death on February 15, 1824.

Summerville

In 1777, William Fleming moved from his plantation, Mt. Pleasant, in

(changed to Powhatan County in that year), to neighboring Chesterfield County where he had bought another plantation called Summerville from Robert Moseley. This was to be his home for the remainder of his life. During his ownership, Summerville's land acreage increased from 528 acres to 906 acres. In 1781, while Richmond was being raided by

Benedict Arnold Benedict Arnold (#Brandt, Brandt (1994), p. 4June 14, 1801) was an American-born British military officer who served during the American Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of ...

, then Governor

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

stayed at Summerville for a night with his college friend William Fleming. Both Jefferson and Fleming had attended the

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public university, public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III of England, William III and Queen ...

. Summerville was a working plantation in Virginia and as such, it had a number of slaves attending to it. In the 1820 United States census, William Fleming is reported as having 13 slaves, 9 males and 4 females. Many of these slaves died at Summerville and were buried in the burial grounds. On February 15, 1824, Judge Fleming died at his house at Summerville and was buried there as well. Summerville continued to be a prosperous plantation up until the end of the Civil War, at which point all of the slaves were emancipated. This caused the plantation to go to ruin and it appears that the Summerville house was abandoned. In the late 1980s most of the Summerville tract was built over by a housing development, including the area where the house would have stood and most likely the burial grounds of the slaves and William Fleming.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fleming, William 1736 births 1824 deaths Continental Congressmen from Virginia House of Burgesses members Members of the Virginia House of Delegates Chief justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia Virginia lawyers People from Cumberland County, Virginia College of William & Mary alumni