My Family Tree

from William Cutler's "History of the State of Kansas"
JOHN G. SPENCER, now among the oldest settlers of Nemaha County, was born December 18, 1818, in Pulaski County, Ky. His father, Samuel, born in Mercer County, Ky., was a son of Amasa Spencer, one of New York's soldiers in the revolution. John G. Spencer removed to Jennings County, Ind., where his father settled in 1832, and in the summer of 1839 he visited the Platte Purchase on a hunting frolic with a party of young men and rode as far west as Fort Riley, Kan., then Indian Territory. Westport, Mo., was then the Kansas City of the West, as Atchison, Leavenworth, St. Joseph and Kansas City had no existence. Returning to Indiana, Mr. Spencer stayed there until 1855, when he came West again for permanent settlement in Kansas. He was accompanied by his son William, now a farmer in Granada Township, and John T., who was killed in the Union Service at Fort Smith, Ark. His first location was on the northeast quarter of Section 18, Township 4, Range 15, on what is now known as Walnut Creek. Here he built a hewed log house with a puncheon floor and roof, and for several years saw much of frontier life in this border territory. His neighbors were Caleb Magill, Henry Gregg, D. M. Locknane and Barney Gentry, all of whom had settled a few weeks or perhaps months before him. Gentry and Locknane are dead, and Gregg and Magill are in Oregon. About 1860, Mr. Spencer engaged in the mercantile business until the purchase of Mr. Letson's interest by H. C. De Forest, who finally, in 1877, bought out Mr. Spencer, who has since been in the stock business. Mr. Spencer has been thrice married, and has three children - William, Eliza and Hattie; the two eldest children born in Jennings County, Ind., and Hattie in Brown County, Kan.

"J G Spencer" served with "O M Gage" on the "Committee on Beasts, Birds, and Fishes" for the Nemaha County Centennial Association in 1875
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ksncgs/news/feb98.pdf