Hiram Fleming's banknote

Here at the Cape Girardeau County Archive Center in Jackson, assistant archivist Lyle Johnston often regales me with examples of atrocious spelling and cheap prices in files from the county's probate court, in the 1800s. Most of these are on the inventory and valuation taken for the deceased's estate auction, where "chizzles" and a "fawling leaf table" went for such staggeringly low prices that it's a wonder there were any proceeds to speak of. But these loose papers with their bare facts and scrolled handwriting hold a wealth of information.

Let's take the file for Hiram Fleming. Born in 1804, he was one of nine children of Revolutionary War veteran Mitchell Fleming. Hiram married twice, and had a daughter, Martha, with his second wife, Margaret Stephenson. Martha died at age 3, in 1846. He was only 38 when he died in 1843.

His file is typical in some respects: his heirs are listed; a complete inventory of items sold at his estate sale is included, as is a list of buyers; one page is marred by an inkstain. Overall, for papers that are close to 200 years old, they're in remarkably good shape.

A particularly unusual find in this file, though, is a piece of cash currency. A dollar bill from the Bank of Cairo at Kaskaskia, Illinois, is nestled in among these documents. Neither Lyle nor I had come across this before -- cash money was fairly rare in the 1840s in Southeast Missouri. That could, at least partially, account for why prices for items at auction were so low.

This file is typical in another respect: receipts. Dozens of slips of paper, most fewer than three inches long, handwritten, detailing expenses incurred against the estate. Two dollars for repair to the house, $14 for 4,000 shingles, two dollars for crying the sale, to name only a few -- then as now, there's a great deal of arranging after a death.

George Fleming, probably a relative of Hiram's, and John Hill were the estate's administrators. The Southern Advocate newspaper ran the notice of Hiram's demise on Feb. 1, 1844, and a receipt for $2 is included in the file.

Interestingly, his name is variously spelled in the estate papers as Hiram Fleming, Flemming, and Flemmings -- not unusual for the time period. Many a genealogy researcher has stumbled on inconsistent name spellings. This file also lists a "spoole thraide" for 12 1/2 cents.

Research almost never ends at the first source.

Hiram isn't listed in Cape Girardeau County's marriage records, but that's not unusual for the time period -- records from the early 1800s were not mandated by the state government, so might not have been created or kept. It's also possible he was married elsewhere.

At any rate, Hiram was buried in the Fleming family cemetery near New Wells, and the inscription on his tombstone reads: "His dying words was [cq] the Lord is my shepherd."