Deweese Spencer

Deweese Spencer, farmer, was born February 25, 1839, in Boone County, Ind., and is a son of Elijah and Elizabeth (Deweese) Spencer. The father was born near the Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia, when ten years of age accompanying his father to Kentucky, where he grew to manhood upon the farm, and received his education; he also there married Elizabeth Deweese, who was born in Natchez, Miss., and when small went to Kentucky, while the country was a wilderness, inhabited by game and wild animals. She bore Mr. Spencer twelve children, eleven living to maturity, and six now living: Melinda, John, Johanna, Deweese, Sarah E. and James M. Those deceased are Mary, Nancy, Browning, Lewis, Andrew J. and an infant. John Spencer, the grandfather, was a soldier in the Revolution, and an early settler of Kentucky, where he died in 1851, at an advanced age. The grandmother, Johanna Spencer, also died in Kentucky, about 1854. The Deweese family is of French descent, and the mother of our subject was a relative of the physician Deweese of Philadelphia. When seven years old Deweese Spencer came to Crawford County, Ark., and at the age of twelve had attended school but six months. He remained at home until nineteen, and then worked ten months at $10 per month. He then drove a freight team for a year in the Indian Nation, after which he farmed some time on rented land. He served in the Union army throughout the war, eighteen months as a citizen scout, and during the commencement of the war as a recruiting officer. After farming a short time where he now lives, he passed two years in Greene County, Mo., and then farmed ten years on Lee's Creek. At the expiration of that time he sold out, and bought his present farm. In 1860 Mr. Spencer married Elizabeth Bowman, who bore him one child, William H., and died December 19, 1862. July 1, 1864, he married Caroline White, daughter [p.1195] of Henry White, both natives of Germany, and by his last marriage is the father of seven children. Elizabeth, Elijah W., Johanna, Sarah C., Lee C., Maud and John H. (deceased). Mr. Spencer is now providing a home for his mother, who is eighty-four years of age, and a member of the Cumberland Baptist Church. Mr. Spencer, the father, died in 1877, aged seventy-nine. Our subject is a well-to-do man, and the owner of 160 acres of land, 100 of which have been finely improved, almost all the improvements having been made by himself. He has been a minister for twelve years, is a Republican, and is a member of the Masonic fraternity and Agricultural Wheel. For ten years he has been a school director.

Transcribed by: T. Stover - August 16, 2007
Source: "History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford, Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas." Chicago, IL, USA: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889, Crawford County, page 1195.