Background
He was born in Halton County, Ontario, Canada, the oldest of ten children of an English immigrant, Samuel, and Sophia (Harwood) Fleming.
(In reaction to the burgeoning industrial blight of late 1...)
In reaction to the burgeoning industrial blight of late 19th century America, the author flees from the big city with a scheme to write a book. It is to be about idyllic life on a small island off the coast of Eastern Connecticut. He finagles a tiny piece of land surrounded by water and hires a local hotel keeper/carpenter to construct a small two-story cabin. To transport him back and forth from the fishing shipbuilding village of Noank, he finds a local rigger to knock together a little sailing skiff. The potential for this Thoreauvian plan begins to fray, however, when he invites two women. Neither is the wife or daughter he has left back in the Midwest. All seems well until arrives another guest and his wife and maid. The restless man whom he here calls Tom is in reality nonetheless than the future great of American letters, Theodore Dreiser. To add to the mix Arthur Henry imports three Noank cats. The original text, published in 1902 as part of a lifestyle trilogy, is entertaining enough in its own right, but this Flat Hammock Press edition adds Stephen Jones' in-the-footsteps, back-story narrative of what happened before, after and even more surprisingly, during the summer of 1900. Arthur Henry's granddaughter and biographer, Maggie Walker provides an introduction. To flesh out the real story, this new volume also includes three short non-fiction pieces by Dreiser based on his awkward forays away from the island. A gallery of dozens of period photographs from 1900 Noank enhances a book which transcends local history to become a permanent part of Americana.
https://www.amazon.com/Island-Cabin-Arthur-Henry/dp/0981896014?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0981896014
He was born in Halton County, Ontario, Canada, the oldest of ten children of an English immigrant, Samuel, and Sophia (Harwood) Fleming.
His basic education in Ontario public schools was supplemented by legal studies after he came to the United States in 1879.
He settled in Detroit, became a naturalized citizen in 1886, and practised law for a few years.
Fowler was simultaneously a successful lumberman, holder of mineral rights to rich iron lands, and a vice-president of the harvester company founded by Cyrus H. McCormick, 1809-1884, his brother-in-law.
Fowler soon made Fleming his associate in the management of his extensive timber interests in the United States and Canada. A decision to develop timber lands in California and to find a climate suited to Mrs. Fleming's fragile health caused Fleming to move in 1896 to Pasadena, where Fowler joined him in 1900.
After Fowler's death in 1904 Fleming continued to manage his father-in-law's investments and added to them ventures of his own in California land, lumber, and forest products, Mississippi lands, a California foundry and metals company, and an interest in patents on a safety coupling for railroad cars.
In September 1898 Mrs. Fleming took over from the previous holder a mortgage on Throop Institute's property, and on April 29, 1903, Fleming was elected to the board of trustees.
His appointment in 1907 to all of the important committees of the board marked the beginning of a quarter-century of devoted service during which he was omnipresent in the affairs of Throop Institute and its successor, the California Institute of Technology.
Not only did he give repeatedly, on several occasions meeting its annual deficit from his own resources, but also to a large degree he took upon himself the business and financial management of the Institute. His insistence on small economies became a campus byword.
Fleming often described his donations to the Institute as totaling over $5, 000, 000, but in his later years business reverses drastically reduced the value of the trust estate he was managing.
The French government granted him the Legion of Honor for financing a pavilion and park to preserve the railroad car in which the armistice was signed in 1918. Fleming's only child, Marjorie, shared in his philanthropic work.
A constant solicitude for his family was a notable trait in Fleming; yet to persons other than his immediate relatives he seemed reserved, determined, and sometimes arbitrary and dogmatic.
His death in Pasadena at eighty-four was caused by a heart ailment. He was buried in Detroit.
Soon after establishing themselves in Pasadena, Fleming, his wife, and Fowler all became interested in local philanthropic causes, among which was Throop Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1891 to provide vocational training. Fleming was chosen vice-president of the board of trustees in 1910, president in 1917, and president emeritus in 1933. In 1920 the trustees officially voted him the designation of "Founder. " At that time he began proceedings, concluded in a deed dated March 1, 1922, by which he gave to the Institute his entire estate, reserving for himself only a fixed annuity and control over the management of the estate. To a large degree it was the promise of this munificence that made financially possible in 1920 the transformation of Throop College of Technology, a local engineering school, into the California Institute of Technology, which, under the guidance of George Ellery Hale, Arthur Amos Noyes, and Robert A. Millikan, was to become a center of internationally significant work in science.
(In reaction to the burgeoning industrial blight of late 1...)
Of decisive importance in determining the future course of his life was his marriage on November 30, 1892, to Clara Huntington Fowler, daughter of Eldridge Merick Fowler.
Soon after establishing themselves in Pasadena, Fleming, his wife, and Fowler all became interested in local philanthropic causes, among which was Throop Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1891 to provide vocational training.
