John Fleming

Background

He was a Scotsman, of whose early life no records are available.

Career

He arrived in Boston in 1764, and was first a partner of William Macalpine and then of John Mein. Thirty-odd publications by him in these connections have been listed (Charles Evans, American Bibliography, vol. IV, 1907), mostly religious in character, but including Fleeming's Register for New England and Nova-Scotia and an Almanack for 1772 (1771), John Dickinson's Letters from a Farmer (1768), and William Knox's The Controversy Between Great Britain and Her Colonies Reviewed (1769).

Fleming continued the Chronicle. Mein had, independently, a bookshop, and an assignment of English debts for this shop coming into the hands of Boston Radicals, they tried, according to James Murray, to levy on the printing-office as well, in order to put an end to the newspaper.

This attack was frustrated by a pledge for the value of Mein's interest, but lack of patronage caused a suspension of the paper with the issue for June 25, 1770.

Fleming continued the printing-office during 1770-73, issuing the register and almanac, and a few other works, including the report of the Boston Massacre trial and William Gordon's plan for life insurance.

According to Isaiah Thomas, who was a contemporary Boston printer, Fleming left for England in 1773. If this was the case, he seems to have returned. The name John Fleming appears among the signers of a loyal petition to King George III in July 1776 (see E. A. Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, 1930, p. 308).

Alice, sister of Dr. Benjamin Church, married, probably at Ports-mouth on August 8, 1770, a John Fleming, variously described as a high Scotch Tory, a printer, and a stationer; and Church's treasonable correspondence was carried on with this "brother, " then in besieged Boston. There is little doubt that this Fleming was the earlier printer, who may have returned as a civil official of the army.

His name does not appear in the partial list of those who left at the evacuation, or in that of the disaffected who remained. He was proscribed and banished by the Act of September 1778; but no proceedings concerning his estate or application for English pension have been found.

Thomas adds that he returned to the United States several times after 1790 as agent of a French commercial house, and that he died in France after 1800.

Achievements

• On December 21, 1767, Mein & Fleeming began to publish the Boston Chronicle, patterned after the London Chronicle and at first a weekly periodical rather than a newspaper. Mein was the efficient editor, and the paper featured selections from foreign journals and works of popular English authors rather than colonial news. Volume I had an index! The Chronicle was well patronized, becoming a semi-weekly in its second year, the first regular one in New England; but with the development of the political controversy it became the chief Tory organ, subsidizing being hinted, and Mein was obliged to leave Boston before the end of 1769.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Chronological Tables, Containing Corresponding Dates of Different Aeras Used in India: Published Under the Authority of Government from 1764 to 1835

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Chronological Tables, Containing Corresponding Dates Of Different Eras Used In India: Published Under The Authority Of Government From 1764 To 1835 (1883)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

Connections

partners:

William Macalpine

John Mein He arrived in Boston in 1764, and was first a partner of William Macalpine and then of John Mein.