My Genealogy Hound

JOHN SPENCER, architect, post office Verona, was born on the River St. Lawrence July 8, 1843, and was reared on a farm near Toronto, Upper Canada. His grandfather, John Spencer, emigrated from the Scotch Highlands to Ireland, where his parents, John and Ellen (Glendon) Spencer, were born. John Spencer, the father of our subject, emigrated to the United States in the summer of 1835, where he worked through Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, for seven years and seven months, going back to Ireland in the fall of 1842, where he married Ellen Glendon, and then returned the spring after and settled on a farm near Toronto, Ontario, where he still resides. Our subject received a limited education, and went to learn the carpenter’s trade of house building and framing when he was seventeen. Remaining only a short time at the trade, and wishing to better himself, he spent two years rambling through a portion of Canada and three or four of our western states, working at whatever came in his way, landing in Pittsburgh in the fall of 1863. Here he finished his trade, and then followed house-building in Pittsburgh, Allegheny City, Birmingham and the suburbs until 1869, when he became a resident in the vicinity of Verona, and erected buildings by contract in and about the borough for eleven years. In 1880 he was employed as engine-carpenter, and the following year became cab-builder in the Allegheny Valley shops. In March, 1887 he lost his thumb and the forefinger of his left hand on a circular-saw. He is now an engine-carpenter, and gives his leisure time to the planning and superintending of buildings. He purchased ground and erected his present residence on First avenue in 1873 where he still resides. Mr. Spencer is now serving his fourth year as First Ward principal assessor. He is also one of the board of directors of the Verona Building & Loan association. He is a republican, and a member of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1869 he married Caroline Augusta Schumacher born in Pittsburgh in 1851. Her parents William August and Julia Caroline (Fees) Schumacher, were of German birth. Following are the names of the living children of Mr. and Mrs. Spencer: Celia Eleanor, Ellen Loretta, Elizabeth Augusta, Mary Marcedeus and John Glendon. Caroline and Maggie B. died in infancy.