SPENCER, John F., b 1848; 1905 Bio, Mesa County, Colorado

http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/mesa/bios/spencerjf.txt



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Donated August 2001

Transcribed by Judy Crook <jlcrook@rof.net> from the book:

Progressive Men of Western Colorado 

Published 1905, A.W. Bowen & Co., Chicago, Ill.



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John F. Spencer

	The cultivation of fruit is one of the most pleasing of all occupations within

the range of agricultural effort, giving enjoyment to those who engage in it and

also to the many who are its beneficiaries as consumers of its products.  And if

it be true that he who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a

public benefactor, much more is he one who produces in abundance some of

nature's delectable and wholesome gifts, which she does up in the most

attractive forms, and places them within the reach of thousands who might

otherwise be unable to enjoy them.  To this class belongs John F. Spencer, whose

orchards, lying about two miles distant from Grand Junction, are among the proud

possessions of Mesa county and an essential addition to her commercial and

industrial wealth.   Mr. Spencer had a long and useful experience as a

preparation for the work in which he is so successfully engaged and which he

conducts with so much skill and intelligence.  He was reared on an excellent

Wisconsin farm, in a locality where nature is so generous that the faith of the

husbandman is always rewarded bounteously if his efforts deserve it, and was

there trained in habits of close observation and careful industry; and after

leaving his home began life for himself as a nurseryman, an occupation in which

he has been occupied more or less ever since.  He was born in 1848, at Vernon,

in the state named, and is the son of William and Marian (Dee) Spencer, the

former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Vermont.  His father was an early

settler in Ohio, and also of Grant county, Wisconsin, where he died in 1875, at

the age of eighty-three years and seven months.  He was a man of prominence and

influence in his section, a Republican in politics, filling with credit a number

of local offices, and a successful and up-to-date farmer, winning a substantial

prosperity from the cultivation of the soil.  His wife survived him ten years,

dying in 1885, at the age of seventy-nine.  Their offspring numbered nine, of

whom John F. was the last born.  He remained at home until he reached his legal

majority, assisting in the work of the farm and attending when he could the

public schools near at hand.  Then he went to Illinois and engaged in the

nursery business near Elmwood, Peoria county, that state, remaining there about

two years.  From Elmwood he came to Colorado and followed farming a year, after

which he conducted a mercantile business for two years at Gunnison.  At the end

of that period he moved to Grand Junction, which was then a small and crude

country village of some three hundred inhabitants, but rapidly outgrowing its

swaddling bands as a village and striding forward to a more ambitious and

metropolitan existence.  Here he served two years as under sheriff by

appointment of the sheriff, William Innis.  He then once more entered the

nursery business, locating at Grand Junction and conducting the second industry

of the kind established at that point.  One of his chief efforts was in the line

of propagating the seedless apple, in which and the general nursery work he was

occupied a number of years at his first location.  He bought the place which he

now owns and operates, containing one hundred and sixty acres of unimproved

land, and determined to devote his energies to the production of superior grades

of fruit, planting an orchard of thirty-five acres for the purpose, chiefly in

peach, pear and apple trees, with a preference for peaches.  He also started a

nursery business on the new site, and both that and his fruit culture have grown

to large proportions and bring him in profitable returns.  In addition to being

a good business man he is an enterprising and progressive citizen, fully alive

to the best interests of the community, and ever ready to perform his part of

the labor necessary to advance them.  In politics he is a Republican, but

without ambition for public office, yet giving his party consistent and

serviceable support.  He was married in 1880 to Miss Ida M. Gould, a native of

Illinois, daughter of Alonzo and Elsie (Cooper) Gould.  They have two children

living, Mabel and Ethel, and one, a daughter named Myrtle, deceased.	

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