Squint Shot 101710

There are a number of Spencers in the Greenwood Cemetery, but for this particular squint shot I am going to record the obituary for Henry N. Spencer, as republished in The Fowlerville Review in 1923 from an article published in The Democrat.

Henry N. Spencer~~This community mourns the death of Henry Spencer which occurred at the home of his mother on West Grand avenue Monday afternoon. His long illness had been followed with more than casual interest by all and neews from the sick chamber was awaited and received with deep concern. As late as Saturday evening, his physician and relatives were optomistic as to his ultimate recovery, but Sunday morning complications of typhoid and meningitis symptoms set in and the end was only a question of a few hours.

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A few days before Christmas, in New York City, Henry found himself infected with fever and was advised to go to a hospital. Instead, he started on a characteristic race for home. He arrived in time to join the family Christmas festivities and to spend a farewell hour at the piano, but the next day took to his bed where he fought off in succession two high-voltage cases of typhoid fever of the most malignant type. The best medical and nursing skill obtainable were employed from the beginning, but the third attack found the patient's worn system with nothing left to fight back with and death came quickly.

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Henry Norman Spencer, the eldest son of Dr. Will C. and Alice McPherson Spencer, was born in Howell May 9, 1889. Dr. Spencer died in Denver but a few years later, and Mrs. Spencer and her two little boys, Henry and William, came back to Howell, which has been their home ever since. Henry attended the public schools here and the Cascadila school for boys at Ithaca, N.E., but the ways of a student were too slow and plodding for Henry's high-geared system and he forsook the classroom for activities of business, returning hom to build and operate with Clifford Britten the first real garage and sales agency in the city. Later in was instrumental in organizing the Spencer-Smith Machine Co., the largest plant of its kind in America, and the Howell Electric Motor Co., which has become a strong competitor in its field. Some time ago, he had severed active connection with the Spencer-Smith Co. to give his entire time and unusual talent in building up the eastern business of the motor concern with offices in New York City. Such, in brief, is the story of a short life crowded with many activities.--The Democrat

Ten years later, the following obituary was published in The Fowlerville Review for another Spencer:

Former Resident Dies in California~~Henry P. Spencer's family came to Fowlerville eighty years ago. The death of Henry P. Spencer at nearly eighty years, in Merced, California, during the Christmas holidays, may have some interest to those in Fowlerville or its adjacent territory who have known the community for three score years and ten.

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Henry P. Spencer was the eldest son of Dr. Henry N. Spencer, who came to Fowlerville in 1853, just eighty years ago. Dr. Spencer was himself then only twenty-seven. He brought with him his wife and their babe in arms. Four years earlier, he had finished his studies at the Cleveland Medical college. Incidentally, the wife and mother was the sister of Dr. James Avery Brown, also eminent in the medical profession, who practiced in Fowlerville and is buried in its cemetery. Two sons, Dr. Will C. Spencer and Dr. J. Ernest Brown, both eminent in the profession of medicine, fully sustained the Spencer and Brown family tradition.

It may be interesting to record how Dr. Henry N. Spencer was one of a family of nine (five brothers and four sisters), of old Connecticut stock, and that all of them except two of the sisters came from New York to Fowlerville in those early days when that great movement of population was on during the fifties to the North Central states and territories. The Spencers were thoroughly rooted in this community, and however far away or long years absent, persist in that feeling still. In Fowlerville were born all of Dr. Spencer's family except Henry, Claudius, William, Belle and Alice. The two older boys recalled very distinctly the excitement in the village as the Civil war came on, the knocks at the little red school house, the training and marching away of the older youths called to the colors. The township of Handy never had a draft. Very distinct was the memory of how drab was the day that saw Lincoln shot.

In 1868, Dr. Henry N. Spencer was elected Judge of the probate court for Livingston county, and Howell, the county seat, became the future old hometown for the family.

In Howell, Henry P. Spencer learned banking in the great banking house of Alexander McPherson & Co. In 1877, he brought Miss Eva Noble a bride to Howell; there their two daughters.