Crawford Co., AR - Biographies - Deweese Spencer

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SOURCE: History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford,
Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas. Chicago: The Goodspeed 
Publishing Co., 1889.
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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. 

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