My Genealogy Hound

Daniel J. Spencer is numbered among Union county’s influential and well known business men and financiers. For years he has been identified with industrial circles as a contractor and builder and he is, moreover, entitled to representation in this volume by reason of the fact that he is one of its early pioneers, his birth having occurred in Iowa, January 14, 1842, before the state was admitted to the Union. The family were then residents of Lee county and he was there reared to manhood.

His father, Andrew Spencer, was born in Connecticut in 1813 and the grandfather, likewise a native of that state, removed to the Western Reserve of Ohio, settling in Trumbull county, where Andrew Spencer was reared to manhood. He there learned the mason’s trade and in the spring of 1838 came to the territory of Iowa, settling in Lee county. This great state, now ranking foremost in the Union in the production of certain cereals and also in the number and grade of its public schools, was then a great stretch of wild, unbroken prairie, a little timber being found along the streams, but for miles the deer traveled across the state without fence or other sign of human habitation to impede his path. Much other wild game was to be had in abundance and the Indians still occupied their old hunting grounds. Andrew Spencer cast in his lots with those who laid the foundation for the present development and progress of Iowa. He worked at his trade in Lee county and built the first brick house in Fort Madison. There he was married to Miss Martha Webster, who was born in Athens county, Ohio. Subsequently they removed to Bed Oak, Iowa, where they spent their last years, the death of the father occurring March 4, 1893, while the mother passed away in 1905 in her eighty-third year. Their son, Daniel J. Spencer, is one of three children, the others being F. P. Spencer, now of Randolph, Iowa, who served in the Seventeenth Iowa Infantry in the Civil war and was imprisoned at Andersonville for three months; and M. N. Spencer, of Red Oak.

Daniel J. Spencer passed his boyhood and youth in his native county and was but twenty years of age when on the 6th of August, 1862, he offered his services to the government in defense of the Union and became a member of Company D, Twenty-fifth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He went south and with the Army of the Tennessee participated in the Vicksburg campaign, being present at the surrender. He was also in the battle of Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, the siege and capture, of Atlanta, the battles of Resaca and New Hope church and in fact all of the movements of the Atlanta campaign. At Jonesboro he sustained a gun-shot wound in the left shoulder which disabled him and he was sent to the hospital at Marietta, while later he was granted a furlough and returned home. On the expiration of his leave of absence he rejoined his regiment at Newbern, marched with the command through Richmond and on to Washington and participated in the grand review held in the capital city in May, 1865, when “wave after wave of bayonet crested blue,” swept by the stand upon which stood the president and other prominent men of the nation to cheer the return of the victorious army. He was mustered out in Washington and honorably discharged at Davenport, June 6, 1865.

Mr. Spencer made a most creditable military record, for he was always loyal to his duty and enthusiastic in his support of the flag. Returning to his home in Lee county, he engaged with his father in laying brick. Previous to the war he had worked at the trade with his father to some extent and he also laid some brick during his term of enlistment in the army. In 1867 he came to Union county after previously residing in Henry county for a brief period, reaching Afton on the 26th of April of that year. Here he started a brickyard and began contracting and building, which business he has followed continuously since, covering a period of more than forty years. He has erected nearly every brick structure in Afton, including residences, business houses and public buildings and also a large number at Creston, including the courthouse, churches, schoolhouses, residences, and also some brick business houses and public buildings in Greenfield and other points in southern Iowa. He likewise built for himself a cold storage plant, which he now uses for a gristmill, grinding meal and feed. He has the mill equipped with a gasoline engine and modern machinery for the manufacture of meal and feed. Mr. Spencer has also built a number of brick residences and business houses for himself, some of which he has sold, and he has con ducted the brick and tile factory for years and is still active in the business. He is recognized as one of the prominent business men of Union county, possessing an alert, enterprising spirit and an aptitude for successful management. He is quick to note and utilize an opportunity and at all times his business career has been such as to warrant and merit the confidence of the business world.

On the 27th of March, 1866, at Denmark, Union county, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Spencer and Miss Julia Loomis, who was born and reared in Lee county and educated in the Denmark Academy, while later she engaged in teaching school for a few years. The wedding ceremony was performed by the Rev. Asa Turner, who had also performed the similar service for Mr. Spencer’s father and mother, and the parents of his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Spencer now have seven sons and a daughter: Harry R.; W. S. and F. A., twins; F. J.; Carl; Helen, the wife of L. L. Brown, train dispatcher on the Union Pacific Railroad in Colorado; T. S.; and Clinton L.

Politically Mr. Spencer is a republican, casting his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and for each nominee at the head of the national ticket since that time. He served for fifteen consecutive years as a member of the city council of Afton and for five years on the school board, also being assessor of the township. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian church of Afton and no good work done in the name of charity or religion fails to receive their endorsement and many times is given their active cooperation. Mr. Spencer is an Odd Fellow and has passed through all of the chairs of the lodge at Afton and is a past grand. For eight consecutive years he served as lodge secretary and he is likewise a member of the encampment. His opinions carry weight in political, fraternal and business circles, for he is widely recognized as a man of sound judgment and progressive spirit. Few men have done more for the substantial improvement of Union county and on every hand are seen monuments to his architectural skill. His work has ever been of the highest character and in all his life he has been actuated by a spirit of strict conformity to a high standard of business ethics.