Individual Details

Marriage

He was a cordwainer and they resided in Abington Township.
Her marriage occurred at Abington meeting-house, Eleventh month 21, 1752. The certificate1 is as follows:

Whereas John Spencer, of Upper Dublin Township, in the County of Philadelphia, cordwainer, and Elizabeth Kirk, daughter of John Kirk, of the Township of Abington, and county aforesaid, having declared their intendons of marriage with each other before several monthly meetings of the People called Quakers at their publick Meeting House at Abington in the county aforesaid [etc.]. Now These are to Certify [etc.] this 21st day of the nth Month, 1752, they [etc.] appeared at a meeting appointed for that purpose at Abington aforesaid,

Some anecdotes of John Spencer survive. In his advanced years he was complaining, in the hearing of his wife, that young women no longer came up to the standards of " the good old times." "The girls are depreciating," he declared. "O, no, John," said El1zabeth, " not depreciating ; thee means degenerating." " Poh, poh ! " rejoined John, " I know what I mean. I mean depreciating. Don't I remember in the Revolution how the Continental money depreciated? Well, that's the way with the girls."

John and his wife had eight children, but only two of these survived their childhood. These were Sarah and Elizabeth, who lived respectively to be 84 and 72. From the dates of the deaths


of the others it appears probable that the two eldest, who died within six days, in the winter of 1765-66, and the two next to them, who died within three days, in the summer of 1769, may have been the victims of epidemic diseases.