John Spencer (speaker)

Spencer was born on 20 April 1666 in Newport in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was the eldest son of nine children born to Dr. John Spencer (1638–1684), who was made freeman of Newport in 1668, and Susannah ({{nee}} Griffin) Spencer (1644–1719).{{Sfn|Greene|1903|p=81-82}}

His paternal grandfather, Michael Spencer, was born in Stotfold, Bedford, England before emigrating to the Massachusetts Bay Colony aboard the ship Mary and John in 1634, first settling at Cambridge before moving to Lynn.{{cite book |last1=Austin |first1=John Osborne |title=The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island: Comprising Three Generations of Settlers who Came Before 1690, with Many Families Carried to the Fourth Generation |date=1969 |publisher=Genealogical Publishing Com |isbn=978-0-8063-0006-1 |page=186 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Genealogical_Dictionary_of_Rhode_Isl/LA7ntaS11ocC&pg=PA186 |access-date=5 January 2024 |language=en}} After his grandfather's death, his grandmother Isabel remarried to Thomas Robbins before her death in Salem in 1674. His maternal grandparents were Robert and Hannah Griffin.{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Charles Owen |title=The Genealogy of Several Allied Families: Frazer,Owen, Bessellieu, Carter, Shaw, Wright, Landfair, Briggs, Neill, Tidwell, Johnson, and Others |date=1961 |publisher=Pelican Publishing Company |isbn=978-1-4556-0476-0 |pages=220–258 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LSFWAAAAMAAJ |access-date=5 January 2024 |language=en}}

Spencer was a prominent landowner and Justice of the Peace and a cordwainer by trade.{{cite book |last1=Steele |first1=George Warren |title=Thomas Steel of Boston and Some of His Descendants 1645-1905: Also ... the Family and Am. Ancestry of Samuel and Olive (Pierce) Steele ... Koshkonong, Wis. 1842; Also the Families of Laura J. and Louisia L. (Pierce) Arkins, of Denver, Col |date=1905 |publisher=Times-mirror |page=52 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Thomas_Steel_of_Boston_and_Some_of_His_D/OZrvuHe2kToC&pg=PA52 |access-date=5 January 2024 |language=en}} He served as Deputy (precursor to Representative) to the General Assembly between 1699 and 1729, as well as Speaker of the House of Deputies from February 1712 to May 1712.{{Sfn|Greene|1903|p=81-82}}

Spencer was married to Audrey Greene (1667–1733), a daughter of Deputy Governor John Greene Jr. and granddaughter of John Greene, an early settler of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations who was one of the 12 original proprietors of Providence and a co-founder of the town of Warwick. Together, they were the parents of:{{cite book |last1=Greene |first1=George Sears |title=The Greenes of Rhode Island: With Historical Records of English Ancestry, 1534-1902 |date=1903 |publisher=Knickerbocker Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jxdqSEfgK50C |access-date=5 January 2024 |language=en}}

• John Spencer (1693–1774), who married his second cousin, Mary Frye, daughter of Deputy Governor Thomas Frye and Welthyan ({{nee}} Greene) Frye, in 1716. After her death in 1732, he married her younger sister, Elizabeth, in 1740.{{Sfn|Greene|1903|p=81-82}}
• William Spencer (1695–1776), who married Elizabeth Rice, daughter of John Rice and Elnathan ({{nee}} Whipple) Rice and great-granddaughter of Capt. Randall Holden, in 1716.{{Sfn|Greene|1903|p=81-82}}{{cite book |last1=Bicknell |first1=Thomas Williams |title=The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations |date=1920 |publisher=American Historical Society |page=188 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_the_State_of_Rhode_Island/6n0lAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA186-IA6 |access-date=5 January 2024 |language=en}}

Spencer died in East Greenwich in 1743.{{Sfn|Greene|1903|p=81-82}}

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Category:1666 births

Category:1743 deaths

Category:American people of English descent

Category:People from Newport, Rhode Island

Category:People from colonial Rhode Island

Category:Speakers of the Rhode Island House of Deputies