Alfred Spencer

Alfred Spencer was born on May 14, 1838, in Sugar Grove (?) Warren County, Pennsylvania, the son of Daniel (1810-1879) and Prudence (Wilcox, 1816-1897).

New York native Daniel and Vermonter Prudence were married in Warren County in 1832 and they lived out the rest of their lives farming in Warren County, possibly in Sugar Grove. In 1850 Alfred was living with his family and attending school with his siblings in Sugar Grove, and he was living in Sugar Grove in 1860.

On February 26, 1861, he married Pennsylvania native Harriett Vaness (b. 1838), probably in Pennsylvania, and they had at least five children: DeEtta (b. 1863), John L. (b. 1865), Myrtle (b. 1867), Harriett (b. 1869) and Edith (b. 1874). Alfred eventually left Pennsylvania (although his children were all born there) for western Michigan sometime before 1864.

He stood 5’11” with brown eyes, sandy hair and a light complexion and was a 21-year-old clerk probably living in Zeeland, Ottawa County when he enlisted in Unassigned on January 5, 1864, at Grand Rapids for 3 years, crediting Zeeland, and was mustered January 6. (He was probably related to George Spencer who was also from Ottawa County and who had enlisted in Company I in 1861.)

There is no further record.

In fact it appears that Alfred eventually returned to his home in Sugar Grove, Pennsylvania where he was working as a lumberman and living with his wife and children in 1870, just one farm away lived his parents. By 1880 he was working in a shingle mill and living with his wife and children in Sugar Grove.