Chap. 4.] LOCAL CELEBRITIES. 101 



the purchaser of that part of the Tootle Height Estate which lies be- 

 ween Spencer's Delf (now Cooper and Tullis's) and Tommy Kenyon's 

 cottage. He also made the acquaintance of the late Mr. Jesse Hartley, 

 the talented and able Surveyor of the Liverpool Dock Company, with 

 whom Mr. Fleming did a very considerable business. Many colossal 

 blocks were conveyed from Mr. Fleming's quarry to the docks at 

 Liverpool. The enterprise and perseverance of Mr. Fleming could, 

 perhaps, never be placed in so favourable a light as at that period- 

 There were no railways to connect the distant town of Liverpool with 

 a remote village, and the only mode of conveyance was by means of 

 horse locomotion. The thing seemed disheartening. Notwithstanding 

 this, however, the traffic was carried on in a satisfactory manner. = Mr. 

 Fleming had also other large contracts, owing to the great fame of 

 Longridge stone." The quarry, which is called after his name to this 

 day, was well and industriously worked by Mr. Fleming for nearly 

 half a century. " Mr. Fleming," continues Mr. Halsall, " might be 

 said to be peculiar in his habits. He rever intrusted the inspection 

 or superintendence of his workmen to anyone. Hence it was, that 

 when gentlemen fi-om other towns, architects, builders, contractors, 

 and others, required to see him, it was common enough for them to 

 find him working away in the rock, or at the crane, utterly undis- 

 tino-uishable from the other men employed under and around him. A 

 suit of clay-coloured trowsers or breeches, and a pair of clogs, was 

 often enough the garb in which he has been found by some of the 

 wealthiest and most talented men of the day." He had a wonderfully 

 strong constitution ; and considering the deleterious nature of a quarry- 

 man's employment, one is struck with the fact that Mr. Fleming 

 should have lived to the patriarchal age of three score and ten. And, 

 moreover, he had no common troubles of a private nature to endure. 

 His early career was blighted and his life chec^uered by the death cf 

 his children. "Little more than thirty years ago," says Mr. Halsall, 

 " he could boast of as fine a family of sons and daughters (near a 

 dozen) as could be found ' in a day's march.' " AU died, some of 

 them in early manhood and womanhood, little more than a year before 



-Mr. H.ilsall is not very clear on this and then conveyed by sea to Livei-pool. 



point. The stone was carted to Preston, 



