D. H. Fleming was an early East Texas sawmiller who followed the construction of the railroads to tap the most easily accessible pine stumpage. In 1880, he operated a small mill south of the Trinity River on the Houston, East and West Texas Railway, but he later moved to Polk County, on the Trinity and Sabine railroad. He named the mill site after himself, and his mill there was rated at 20,000 board feet per day in 1893. Such a mill could possibly support a town of 100 persons, but the town's population undoubtedly grew in 1897 when Fleming started operating the first band sawmill on the Trinity and Sabine line.
D. H. Fleming & Son in 1896 were running a sawmill at Hampton, in Tyler County, just east of Polk County. It was still operating in 1907. It may have bought out the Big Tree Lumber Company between 1902 and 1904.
Daniel Hampton Fleming established a thriving sawmill town on the Texas & Southern Railroad between Trinity and Colmesneil with a large Fleming-owned general store, a post office, and a Presbyterian church. Fleming became the first postmaster of Hampton in 1898. His son, John Beaver Fleming, continued the business until 1918.