As I’ve noted previously, Fleming is one of two communities in Liberty County named for the pioneer William Fleming family, who owned large area plantations. A post office named ‘Fleming’ was established in 1871. A few structures remain, including a precinct house (right) and fire station (center), though I believe the precinct is now closed.
I’m identifying this as a storefront, because there was an old portable sign beside it, but it could have just as well been a residence. I hope to learn more.
This is one of just a few historic structures located in Fleming. I don’t know it it is original to the location. It has a saddlebag floor plan, with a wing added later, though one could easily see it as Georgian Cottage in miniature.
Sources are quite varied as to the early history of Mt. Olivet Methodist Church, but I believe it was established circa 1843, per the Liberty County Historical Society, and the present structure built in 1881. A bicentennial history of the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, published in 1984, posited that the congregation was established circa 1768-1770 as Pleasant Grove. My understanding is that Pleasant Grove was a satellite congregation of Midway, established in the early 1800s. Because of a plantation association, it catered more to its enslaved congregants, and as a result, its white members eventually established Mt. Olivet.
Stacy Ashmore Cole has done excellent research on the subject of the Pleasant Grove name and concluded: “There are several Pleasant Grove churches within the history of Liberty County…” including the “now-defunct Pleasant Grove Methodist Church that was an offshoot of the Midway Congregational Church. Founded in the early 1800’s, it was attended by both white and black – enslaved and free – members…The white membership of the church later founded the Mt. Olivet Methodist Church in Fleming, Liberty County, which still exists.”
I feel that this is the same Pleasant Grove referred to by Lillie Walthour Gillard in Liberty County: A Pictorial History: “A meeting house was erected on land between the North and South Newport rivers in 1806 and was named Pleasant Grove [possibly on Roswell King’s South Hampton plantation]. According to Dr. Stacy’s history of the Midway church, “Messrs. Bradwell, John Ashmore, Colonel Joseph Law and others held reading services every Sunday for the Negroes in that area. Later the Methodist circuit riders made it a station from which the Negroes benefited.”
Fleming (not to be confused with Flemington) is one of two communities in Liberty County named for the pioneer William Fleming family, who owned large area plantations. Fleming proper is actually a bit off GA-196 (Leroy Coffer Highway) on Fleming Loop, but since so many people take this shortcut between Hinesville and Savannah, this was a good place to put the name of this little-known community out there for everyone to see. This newer store and a fruit stand stay fairly busy, and no doubt the Coca-Cola mural, done in the old style, still draws people off the road.
And a brief message to those of you who have sent me messages recently. Thanks for your concern, and yes, I’m still around. I will do my best to answer as many of you as possible. Year’s end has found me getting the gamut of mid-life medical tests and all the fun that entails, and planning some new directions for Vanishing Georgia. I just wanted check in and will keep you all posted.