Sno-Spr: Snow through Springstead

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


SNOW, Benjamin, Jr., Fitchburg, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1844-1860.


SNOWDON, Samuel, clergyman, anti-slavery activist, Boston, Massachusetts.

(Gates, 2013, Volume 11, p. 379)


SNYDER, Jacob, New York, Executive Committee member and founding officer of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, Utica, New York, October 1836.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971; Minutes, First Annual Meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, Utica, New York, October 19, 1836)


SOULE, Bishop, Maryland, clergyman.  Vice President of the Maryland Society of the American Colonization Society. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 111)


SOULE, Silas Stillman, 1838-1865, Bath, Maine, radical/militant abolitionist, Kansas Territory Jay Hawker, Union Army officer.


SOUTHARD, Henry, 1749-1842, Member of Congress from New Jersey 1801-1811 and 1815-1821.  Opposed slavery as Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V., p. 613; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 93, 145, 145; Annals of Congress). 

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 613:

SOUTHARD, Henry (suth'-ard), congressman, born on Long Island, New York, in October, 1749; died in Baskingridge, New Jersey, 2 June, 1842. The family name was formerly Southworth. His father, Abraham, removed to Baskingridge in 1757. The son was brought up on a farm and earned money as a day-laborer to purchase land for himself. He was an active patriot during the Revolution, served in the state house of representatives for nine years, and sat in congress in 1801-'11 and 1815-'21, having been chosen as a Democrat. Mr. Southard was a man of superior talents and possessed a remarkable memory. Until he had passed ninety years he neither wore glasses nor used a staff. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 613.


SOUTHARD, Nathaniel, New York, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1840-1841.


SOUTHARD, Samuel Lewis, 1787-1842, Trenton, New Jersey, attorney.  Whig U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy, 1823-1829.  American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1834-1841. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 613; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 411; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 613:

SOUTHARD, Samuel Lewis, senator, born in Baskingridge, New Jersey, 9 June, 1787; died in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 26 June, 1842, was graduated at Princeton in 1804, taught in his native state, and then went to Virginia as tutor in the family of John Taliaferro. After studying law and being admitted to the bar in that state, he returned to New Jersey and settled at Remington. He was appointed law-reporter by the legislature in 1814, became associate justice of the state supreme court in 1815, was a presidential elector in 1820, and was chosen to the U. S. senate as a Whig in place of James J. Wilson, who had resigned, serving from 16 February, 1821, till 3 March, 1823. In 1821 he met his father on a joint committee, and they voted together on the Missouri compromise. In September, 1823, he became secretary of the navy, and he served till 3 March, 1829, acting also as secretary of the treasury from 7 March till 1 July, 1825, and taking charge of the portfolio of war for a time. When he was dining with Chief-Justice Kirkpatrick, of New Jersey, soon after his appointment to the navy, the judge, aware of his ignorance of nautical affairs, said: “Now, Mr. Southard, can you honestly assert that you know the bow from the stern of a frigate?” On his retirement from the secretaryship of the navy in 1829 he became attorney-general of New Jersey, and in 1832 he was elected governor of the state. He was c hosen U. S. senator again in 1833, and served till his resignation on 3 May, 1842. In 1841, on the death of President Harrison and the consequent accession of John Tyler, he became president of the senate. He was made a trustee of Princeton in 1822, and in 1833 the University of Pennsylvania gave him the degree of LL. D. Mr. Southard published “Reports of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1816-'20” (2 vols., Trenton, 1819-'20), and numerous addresses, including a “Centennial Address” (1832), and “Discourse on William Wirt” (Washington, 1834).—Samuel Lewis's son, SAMUEL LEWIS, clergyman (1819-'59), was graduated at Princeton in 1836, and took orders in the Protestant Episcopal church. He published “The Mystery of Godliness,” a series of sermons (New York, 1848), and single discourses.  Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


SOUTHEBY, William A., Pennsylvania, Society of Friends, Quaker.  As early as 1696, Southeby condemned the institution of slavery.  In 1712, he petitioned Quaker officials to reject and abolish slavery.  Wrote a paper opposing slavery and was censured by fellow Quakers in Philadelphia.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 19, 28-29, 34, 36, 40, 47, 51, 55; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 9, 11, 93, 94; Soderlund, Jean R. Quakers & Slavery: A Divided Spirit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 4, 19, 22, 32, 35, 49, 174, 186, 187; Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 62-66)


SOUTHER, Samuel, Worcester, Massachusetts, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1861-64.


SOUTHGATE, Edward, Reverend, Kentucky.  Agent for the American Colonization Society (ACS) in Kentucky.  Worked with Robert S. Finley of the ACS. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 145)


SOUTHMAYD, Daniel S., Lowell, Massachusetts.  Manager, 1833-1834, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


SOUTHWICK, Abby, abolitionist leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), Boston, Massachusetts.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 353n, 301-302, 307, 316, 333)


SOUTHWICK, Edward, Augusta, Maine, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-1840.


SOUTHWICK, Hannah, abolitionist leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), Boston, Massachusetts.


(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 289)


SOUTHWICK, Joseph, Maine, abolitionist.  Vice president, 1833-1835, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1848. 

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


SOUTHWICK, Sarah H. abolitionist leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), Boston, Massachusetts.


(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 50, 62, 273n, 289)


SOUTHWICK, Thankful, abolitionist leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), Boston, Massachusetts.
 

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 56, 62, 64, 253n, 280, 289, 292)


SPALDING, Rufus Paine, 1798-1886, Massachusetts, lawyer, jurist.  Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio, 1863-1869.  Opposed the extension of slavery into the new territories.  In 1847, declared: “If the evil of slavery had been restricted, as it should have been, to the thirteen original states, self-interest might have led to the extinction of the practice long before now.”  Spalding joined the anti-slavery Free Soil Party in 1850.  He opposed the Fugitive Slave Act.  He encouraged fellow attorneys in Cleveland to oppose the Act.  He represented Underground Railroad conductor Simon Buswell in his defense, arguing the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional.  He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.  Spalding was elected to Congress in 1862.  While there, he introduced legislation to repeal the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850.  One of the organizers of the Republican Party.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Sinha, 2016, pp. 524, 525; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 620-621; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe.)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume V, pp. 620-621.
 
SPALDING, Rufus Paine, jurist, born in West Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, 3 May, 1798; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 29 August, 1886. He was graduated at Yale in 1817, and subsequently studied law under Zephaniah Swift, chief justice of Connecticut, whose daughter, Lucretia, he married in 1822. In 1819 he was admitted to practice in Little Rock, Arkansas, but in 1821 he went to Warren, Ohio. Sixteen years later he moved to Ravenna, Ohio, and he was sent to the legislature in 1830-'40 as a Democrat, serving as speaker in 1841-'2. In 1840 he was elected judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio for seven years, but when, three years later, the new state constitution was adopted, he declined a re-election and began practice in Cleveland. In l852 he entered political life as a Free-Soiler, and he was one of the organizers of the Republican Party. He was a member of Congress in 1863-'9, where he served on important committees, but he subsequently declined all political honors. Judge Spalding exercised an important influence in restoring the Masonic Order to its former footing after the disappearance of William Morgan. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 620-621.


SPAULDING, Timothy, LaPorte County, Indiana, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-1840.


SPEAR, Charles (May 1, 1801-April 13, 1863), Universalist minister, friend of prisoners,  His death in 1863 was mourned by abolitionist newspaper The Liberator (April 24, 1863, p. 67) as that of a modest philanthropist who found "his chief happiness in laboring for others, especially for the neglected and most wretched classes of society."

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 438-439:

SPEAR, CHARLES (May 1, 1801-April 13, 1863), Universalist minister, friend of prisoners, was born in Boston, Massachusetts. As a child he was apparently nurtured in a religious atmosphere, for a younger brother (born in Boston, September 16, 1804) was named after John Murray [q.v.], the founder of Universalism in America. Accordingly, although completing an apprenticeship as a printer, Charles likewise studied theology under the Reverend Hosea Ballou and was called to minister to the Universalist parish in Brewster (1828), then in Rockport (c. 1837), and finally in Boston (1839). On December 22, 1829, he married Mrs. Frances King of Brewster. A little book, Names and Titles of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he compiled and printed in 1841, gained him a wider acquaintance, but his religious fervor was more a product of sentiment than of scholarship, and it was his sympathy for the fate of both condemned and discharged criminals that made his life significant. Printing his Essays on the Punishment of Death in 1844, Spear deserves some of the credit for the formation in that year of the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, of which he became the faithful secretary. It was at this point that a squabble among the friends of prison reform in New England alienated a large faction from the dogmatic leadership of Louis Dwight of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, and Spear found the occasion propitious for the establishment of a thin weekly paper, The Hangman, the first issue appearing in January 1845; a year later the title was changed to The Prisoners' Friend, and in September 1848, on the occasion of a John Howard Festival in Boston, organized by Spear and a group of friends, the weekly was transform ed into a monthly. Meanwhile, in its pages and subsequently in book form, Spear had published A Plea for Discharged Convicts (1846).

While Charles was issuing appeals against the irrevocable punishment of death and in behalf of the friendless discharged man, his younger brother, John Murray Spear, also a Universalist minister and collaborator in the journal, undertook a personal mission of visitation, befriending and assisting released convict. The two brothers thus introduced Boston to the humanitarian activities later to be organized under parole laws, in which pioneering they had been preceded by Isaac Tatem Hopper [q.v. ] in New York. Depending
entirely on the philanthropy of their subscribers-numbering only 1,500 in 1845-and faced with the fact that "all do not pay up," they were fortunate in attracting a donation of $225 from Jenny Lind in 1850. Wider recognition was received in the same year when an official request from England for information concerning the laws of the states on capital punishment was referred by the authorities at Washington to Charles Spear. Interpreting this request as a providential command to go over and help Europe abolish capital punishment, he proceeded to Washington to gather information and to enlarge the circle of his backers. Securing a letter from Daniel Webster, he journeyed to England in time to attend the Congress of the Friends of Universal Peace at London in 1851, but his "Notes by the Way," sent back to his brother who was temporarily in charge of the Prisoners' Friend, naively reveal that his inspection of English and French prisons and his attempted conference with several British statesmen made very little stir in the Old World. His dream of a world association to safeguard the interests of convicts remained to be dreamed afresh by Enoch Cobb Wines [q.v.] in the late sixties.

Even back in Boston the friendless prisoner was becoming still more friendless as the fifties advanced, and Charles Spear, with many of his subscribers disgruntled over the cost of the editor's five-month "vacation," found the support for his paper steadily decreasing and was forced to discontinue publication in 1859 or shortly thereafter. Meanwhile John Murray Spear had been attracted to Spiritualism, and had become a medium in 1852. Perhaps because of his unorthodox interests, his later years are obscure, though publications of his indicate that he was still living in 1872. It is evident that Charles kept to the firmer path of the devout friend of the down-trodden, for in 1858, together with his second wife, Catharine Swan Brown, he engaged in missionary activities (Missionary Labors of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Spear for the Year Ending January, 1859, 1859), and soon after the outbreak of the Civil War he secured an appointment as hospital chaplain in Washington, where he contracted a disease and wasted away his remaining energies visiting wounded soldiers. His decease in 1863 was mourned by The Liberator (April 24, 1863, p. 67) as that of a modest philanthropist who found "his chief happiness in laboring for others, especially for the neglected and most wretched classes of society."

[Charles Spear's publications are listed in Joseph Sabin, Wilberforce Eames, and R. W. G. Vail, A Directory of Books Relating to America, XXII, 487-89; of these the volumes of the Prisoners' Friend, 1846-59, have the greatest value to the biographer, but see also J. G. Adams, Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism (1882); Boston Transcript, April 14, 22, 1863. For John M. Spear his Labors for the Destitute Prisoner (1851), The Educator (1857), and Twenty Years on the Wing (1873), as well as Frank Podmore, Modern Spiritualism (2 volumes, 1902), are of assistance.]

B. McK.
 

SPEAR, John Murray, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1846-55, Vice-President, 1843-46.  Severely beaten by a mob of pro-slavery supporters in Portland, Maine.


SPEED, James, 1812-1887, Kentucky, lawyer, soldier, statesman, U.S. Attorney General.  Ardent opponent of slavery.  Early friend of Abraham Lincoln.  Emancipation candidate for Kentucky State Constitutional Convention.  Unionist State Senator.  U.S. Attorney General appointed by President Lincoln in 1864, he served until 1866. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 625-626: James Speed, James Speed, A Personality (1914); Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky (Cincinnati, 1878); Diary of Gideon Welles (1911), volume II; A. J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln (1928), volume I

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1:

SPEED, JAMES (March 11, 1812-June 25, 1887), lawyer, federal attorney-general, was the descendant of James Speed who emigrated from England and settled in Surry County, Virginia, about the end of the seventeenth century. His grandfather, also James, settled near Danville, Kentucky, about 1783. His father, John, settled in Jefferson County, at "Farmington," five miles from Louisville, and married Lucy Gilmer Fry. There James was born. He attended school in the neighborhood, and then at St. Joseph's College in Bardstown, where he was graduated probably in 1828. The next two years he spent in the county clerk's office in Louisville. He then went to Lexington to the law department of Transylvania University. In 1833 he began the practice of law in Louisville and continued with a few interruptions as long as he lived. In 1841 he married Jane Cochran, the daughter of John Cochran of Louisville. They had seven sons. In 1847 he was elected to the state legislature. In 1849 he was defeated for the state constitutional convention by James Guthrie, on the emancipation issue. His grandfather, James, had suffered defeat for a seat in the Constitutional Convention of 1792 on the same issue, for hostility to slavery long characterized the Speed family. In 1849 Speed wrote a series of letters to the Louisville Courier, in which he boldly assumed a position against slavery that definitely limited his political career until the outbreak of the Civil War. For two years, from 1856 to 1858, in addition to his legal practice, he taught law in the University of Louisville.

In the secession movement he took the typical Kentucky attitude-a desire to preserve the Union and at the same time avoid war. He was a member of the Union .central committee, which was set up to merge the Bell and Douglas forces, and which on April 18, 1861, issued an address lauding Governor Beriah Magoffin's refusal to respond to Lincoln's call for troops and advising the people to refuse aid to either side. In 1861 he was elected to the state Senate as an uncompromising Union man, and he continued in this position until 1863. He became a principal adviser of Lincoln on affairs in Kentucky, and in the latter part of 1864 was appointed attorney-general. He was the brother of Joshua Fry Speed, Lincoln's intimate friend. He was also a Southerner and a conservative, a man agreeing with the President's policy of moderation toward the Southern states, and a man for whom Lincoln had a personal affection. Lincoln could say of him in Washington, that he was "an honest man and a gentleman, and one of those well poised men, not too common here, who are not spoiled by a big office" (Lord Charnwood, Abraham Lincoln, 1916, p. 404). As long as Lincoln lived Speed held true to the President's policy; but when a strange fascination for the radicals developed, Charles Sumner was then able to say of him that he was the "best of the Cabinet" (J. F. Rhodes, History of the United. States, 1904, V, 533). He favored military commissions to try the Lincoln conspirators and other persons not protected by their paroles (opinion of the Constitutional Power of the Military to Try and Execute the Assassins of the President, 1865, and the American Annual Cyclopaedia, Appletons', 1866), though he consistently held that Jefferson Davis should be tried by the civil courts. He early began to advocate negro suffrage and was soon as critical as Stanton of President Johnson. He opposed Johnson's veto of the Freedmen's Bureau bill and favored the Fourteenth Amendment. As time went on he found himself increasingly out of harmony with Johnson, and on July 17, 1866, he resigned. The breaking point seems to have developed over the Philadelphia convention, when, in answer to a communication sent him by the committee in charge of promoting that convention, he declared that he thoroughly disapproved of it.

He then returned to Louisville and later bought a home near the city, "The Poplars." In September 1866 he attended the Southern Radical convention in Philadelphia and was made its permanent chairman. There he made a bitter speech against Johnson, characterizing him as the "tyrant of the White House"-an expression he later changed to "tenant" (J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years, 1886, II, 226; G. F. Milton, Age of Hate, 1930, p. 726, footnote 28). Back in Kentucky he took a prominent part in Radical Republican activities. In 1867 he received forty-one votes in the Kentucky legislature for senator but was defeated; the next year the Kentucky delegates gave him their votes for vice-president; in 1870 he ran for the national House of Representatives and was defeated. In 1872 and in 1876 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention and each time served on the committee of resolutions. As he grew older he reverted to the ways and beliefs of his earlier life. He continued his practice of law in Louisville and from 1872 to 1879 he taught law again in the University of Louisville. In 1884 he supported Grover Cleveland for the presidency. A few years before his death he became a n .unwilling party to a controversy with Joseph Holt, over the question of President Johnson having received the recommendation for mercy in the Mrs. Surratt case. Against the almost frantic appeals of Holt to Speed to say publicly that Johnson saw the recommendation, Speed resolutely refused on the ground of the rule against divulging cabinet proceedings. Speed's last public appearance was at Cincinnati on May 4, 1887, when he addressed the Society of the Loyal Legion, Address of Hon. James Speed before the ... Loyal Legion (1888). He died at "The Poplars" and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery at Louisville.

[James Speed, James Speed, A Personality (1914); Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky (Cincinnati, 1878); Diary of Gideon Welles (1911), volume II; A. J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln (1928), volume I; Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia . . . . 1887 (1888); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), 2 series, VII; Lewis and R. H. Collins, History of Kentucky (2 volumes, 1874); Thomas Speed, Records and Memorials of the Speed Family (1892); New York Herald, July 17, 1866; Louisville Commercial, June 26, 1887; North American Review, July, September 1888; letters in Joseph Holt Correspondence and Edwin M. Stanton MSS. in the Library of Congress and in the Charles Sumner MSS. in Harvard College Library]

E. M. C. 

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 625-626:

SPEED, James, lawyer, born in Jefferson county, Kentucky, 11 March, 1812; died there, 25 June, 1887. He was graduated at St. Joseph's college, Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1828, studied law at Transylvania, and began practice at Louisville. His ancestors were identified with that state from pioneer days, and were active participants in the best political life of the young commonwealth. Inheriting a repugnance to every form of oppression and injustice, he was naturally opposed to slavery, and his well-known opinions on that subject prevented his taking any prominent part in politics until the opening of the civil war. He was then nearly fifty years old, but he had established his reputation as a jurist, and was recognized even by those wholly opposed to him on the issues of the time as able, consistent, and upright. He also held at this time a chair in the law department of the University of Louisville. A powerful element in Kentucky strove to commit the state to the disunion cause, and against that element he exercised all his talents and influence. To him as much as any one man is ascribed the refusal of Kentucky to join the Confederacy.  He became in early manhood a friend of Abraham Lincoln, and their subsequent relations continued to be intimate. When the war came, he promptly yielded to the president’s request that he should assist in organizing the National troops in his native state, and he devoted himself to the cause of loyalty until 1864, when he was made attorney general of the United States. He was a member of the legislature in 1847, and in 1849 was the Emancipation candidate for the State constitutional convention, but was defeated by James Guthrie, Pro-slavery. He was a Unionist state senator in 1861-‘3, mustering officer of the U.S. volunteers in 1861 for the first call for 75,000 men, and U.S. attorney-general of 1864 till 1866 when he resigned from opposition to Andrew Johnson’s administration. He was also a delegate to the Republican conventions of 1872 and 1876. His last appearance in public was in delivering an address on Lincoln before the Loyal league of Cincinnati, 4 May, 1887. In 1875, he returned to his law professorship.  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 625-626.


SPENCER, John Canfield (January 8, 1788-May 17, 1855), lawyer, congressman, cabinet officer.  Joining the Whig party, he became secretary of state of New York in 1839,  and was opposed to the annexation of Texas.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 449-450:

SPENCER, JOHN CANFIELD (January 8, 1788-May 17, 1855), lawyer, congressman, cabinet officer, was born in Hudson, New York, the eldest son of Ambrose Spencer [q.v.] and Laura (Canfield) Spencer. His father soon afterward became established in Albany; and subsequently held many important public offices-a fact of considerable significance in relation to the public career of the son. John C. Spencer entered college at Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he remained about a year; then transferred to Union College, Schenectady, New York. He graduated with high honors in 1806, and during the following year became the private secretary of Governor Daniel D. Tompkins [q.v.]. He also began the study of law in Albany, and in 1809 was admitted to the bar. On May 20 of that year he married Elizabeth Scott Smith, daughter of J. Scott Smith of New York City, and soon thereafter moved to Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York, where, with very limited funds, he began to practise law.

His rise was rapid. Within two years he became a master in chancery, and in 1813 was appointed brigade judge-advocate in active service along the frontier. He was appointed postmaster at Canandaigua in 1814, and in 1815 became assistant attorney-general and district attorney for the five western counties of the state. While holding the last-named office, he was elected to Congress by the Clintonian faction. During his term in the House (1817-19), he served on a committee which investigated and reported unfavorably on the affairs of the Bank of the United States (House Document 92, 15 Congress, 2 Session). While still in Congress, he was nominated for United States senator by the Clintonian members of the legislature, but was defeated in the ensuing election. He was next elected to the General Assembly, serving three terms, 1820, 1821, 1822, in the first as speaker. He was a member of the state Senate during four sessions, 1825-28. In 1827 Governor DeWitt Clinton [q.v.] appointed him with John Duer and B. F. Butler [qq.v.] on a committee to revise the statutes of the state. Spencer's abilities, including an amazing grasp of detail, eminently qualified him for this task and contributed greatly to the successful revision (The Revised Statutes of the State of New York, 3 volumes, 1829).

Having in the meantime joined the Anti-Masonic party, Spencer, in 1829, became special prosecuting officer to investigate the abduction of William Morgan [q.v.],  and, despite attempts to assassinate him, pursued the investigation until lack of funds necessitated his resignation in 1830. His pamphlet, A Portrait of Free Masonry (1832), was reprinted in John Quincy Adams' Letters Addressed to Wm. L. Stone ..upon the Subject of Masonry (1833). In 1831 and 1833 he was again a member of the state Assembly. In 1837 he moved to Albany, where he spent the greater portion of his remaining years. In 1838 he edited Democracy in America, translated by Henry Reeves from the French of De Tocqueville. Joining the Whig party, he became secretary of state of New York in 1839, and upon the reorganization of the cabinet following the death of President Harrison in 1841, he was appointed by President Tyler as secretary of war. His adherence to Tyler cost him the friendship of the Clay Whigs, and when in January 1844 Tyler nominated him to the United States Supreme Court, the Senate rejected him. He remained in the War Department from October 12, 1841, until March 3, 1843; then became secretary of the treasury, but resigned, May 2, 1844, because of his opposition to the annexation of Texas. After retiring from public life, his last important legal case was the successful defense of Dr. Eliphalet Nott [q.v.], president of Union College, against the charge of misappropriating college funds (Argument in Defense of the Reverend Eliphalet Nott, 1853).

In personal appearance Spencer has been described as tall and slender; with eyes "fierce and quick-rolling," and a face bearing "the line of thought and an unpleasant character of sternness." He was considered one of the ablest lawyers of his day, but his devotion to detail often prevented his taking a broad view of public problems. He was notoriously short-tempered, and his inability to yield to or work with others kept him from acquiring the political power he desired. He died in Albany, survived by his wife and three children. One son, Philip, serving as acting midshipman under Alexander Slidell Mackenzie [q.v.], was executed for attempted mutiny on the brig Somers, in 1842, while his father was secretary of war.

[L.B. Proctor, The Bench and Bar of New York (1870); Joel Munsell, The Annals of Albany, volumes III (1852), VI (1855); W. A. Butler, The Revision of the Statutes of the State of New York and the Revisers (1889); D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, volumes I, II (1906); E. A. Werner, Civil List ... of New York (1889); Evening Post (New York), May 21, 1855; New York Daily Times, May 19, 1855; Albany Evening Atlas, May 18, 19, 1855; Albany Argus, May 19, 1855.]

R. W. I.


SPENCER, Platt Rogers (November 7, 1800- May 16, 1864), penman.  A reformer who gave generously to the temperance and anti-slavery causes.

(R. C. Spencer, Spencer Family History and Genealogy (Milwaukee, 1889); The American Annual Cyclopedia, 1864).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 451-452:

SPENCER, PLATT ROGERS (November 7, 1800- May 16, 1864), penman, was born at East Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York. the youngest of the eleven children of Caleb and Jerusha (Covell) Spencer. His father, a farmer and a soldier in the Revolution, was of Rhode Island stock; his mother was a native of Chatham, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. The Spencers moved, when Platt was about three years old, to the vicinity of Wappingers Falls and thence to Windham, Green County, where after a few years the father died. Footloose and hopeful, however poor, the family set out for the West and on December 5, 1810, after a wagon jaunt of fifty-one days, pulled up at Jefferson, Ashtabula County, Ohio. Except for short absences occasioned by his duties as a peripatetic teacher and for two others of somewhat longer duration, Spencer lived the rest of his life in that county. From earliest childhood he had a Chinese reverence for calligraphy, which, growing to a master pass ion, became his mission and his livelihood and made his name familiar, like Noah Webster's and Lindley Murray's, in the schoolrooms of his country. As a small boy he studied and often criticized severely the handwriting of the notices posted on the village bulletin-board and practised his own chirography on sand beds, snowbanks, and other available surfaces, for paper was scarce and expensive in the back settlements. In later years he enjoyed telling the story, half humorous and half pathetic, of his first piece of writing paper. By the time he was twenty years old he had developed his characteristic hand, a sloping, semi angular style, rapid and legible, and easily lending itself to embellishment with mazy capitals and shaded lines of the sort affected by old-time writing masters. His schooling having been of the scantiest, he was practically self-taught, but a dilute Rousseauism was in the atmosphere, and to Nature Spencer gave all credit for his art, maintaining in prose and rhyme that he had found his inspiration in the graceful forms of the feathered grass, the vine, and the undulating waves of Lake Erie's shore. After a little experience as clerk in a store and supercargo on a lake vessel, he entered on his life-work as a teacher of penmanship. Besides conducting his own school in a log-house on his farm at Geneva, Ohio, he traveled around the country teaching in various academies and business colleges. His innocent, winning manner, the skill and enthusiasm of his teaching, and the conviction with which he preached the moral, esthetic, and pecuniary benefits of the gospel of penmanship made him irresistible. In 1848 he first issued copy-slips with printed instructions; copy-books followed about 1855; and soon a whole series of textbooks began to appear. His five grown sons and a favorite nephew became his chief disciples, and continued and spread his work.

Spencer was married in 1828 to Persis Duty, by whom he had six sons and five daughters. Despite his devotion to his profession, he took great delight in his family life and had several avocations. In spirit even more a reformer than a pedagogue, he was, like most reformers, too magnanimous to restrict himself to one line and gave himself generously to the temperance and anti-slavery causes. For a time he lived in Oberlin in order to enjoy congenial society. He was treasurer of his county for twelve years and secretary, from its founding in 1838, of its historical society. His wife's death in 1862 was a great affliction to him, and he survived her by less than two years. He died at his home at Geneva, Ohio.

[Biographical sketch, with an introductory note by J. A. Garfield, in History of Ashtabula County, Ohio (1878), ed. by W.W. Williams; R. C. Spencer, Spencer Family History and Genealogy (Milwaukee, 1889); The American Annual Cyclopedia, 1864.]

G. H. G.


SPENCER, Thomas, Salem, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1834-1835.


SPERRY, Calvin, New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


SPERRY, Croyden S., Brooklyn, New York, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Rec. Secretary, 1847-48.


SPERRY, Nehemiah Day (July 10, 1827-November 13, 1911), congressman and postmaster of New Haven. Originally a Whig. In 1856 he was a member of the platform committee of the national convention of the American party that nominated Fillmore and was one of those who bolted the convention because of its refusal to take a strong anti-slavery stand. From then on his affiliations were with the Republican party, and for many years, as chairman of the state Republican committee, he dominated Republican politics in Connecticut.

(Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Representative Men of Connecticut (1894); Who's Who in America, 1910-11; Hartford Courant, Hartford Times, New Haven Register and Springfield Republican, November 14, 1911).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 456:


SPERRY, NEHEMIAH DAY (July 10, 1827-November 13, 1911), congressman and postmaster of New Haven, was born in Woodbridge, Connecticut, the third son of Enoch and Mary Atlanta (Sperry) Sperry and the descendant of Richard Sperry, an original settler in Woodbridge and one of those who aided the regicides in 1661. Nehemiah obtained a scanty education at the district school and later at a private school in New Haven, and while scarcely more than a boy taught successfully in various district schools. As a youth he learned the trade of mason and builder. In 1847 he was married to Eliza H. Sperry of Woodbridge who died in 1873 leaving two children. In 1847 also he began business as a building contractor in partnership with his brother-in-law. The firm, later known as Smith, Sperry & Treat, was successful from the start, and for more than a half century was a leading firm of contractors in New Haven. Early financial success led him into other lines of business, and he became prominent in many New Haven enterprises. He was particularly interested in transportation and among other projects organized the Fair Haven and Westville horse railroad, said to be the first street railroad in the state, obtained for it a charter from the state, and served as its president for ten years. He was also one of the promoters and incorporators of the New Haven and Derby railroad. Although an able and successful business man, his primary interest was politics, and it is doubtful if, in length of years, his political career has been equaled in Connecticut. In 1853 he was a member of the New Haven common council, and an alderman in 1854. Originally a Whig, he threw himself into the new American or "Know-Nothing" party and was an important leader in Connecticut. As a candidate of that party he was elected secretary of state for 1855 and 1856, and only his lack of the requisite age prevented his nomination for governor in 1855. In 1856 he was a member of the platform committee of the national convention of the American party that nominated Fillmore and was one of those who bolted the convention because of its refusal to take a strong anti-slavery stand. From then on his affiliations were with the Republican party, and for many years, as chairman of the state Republican committee, he dominated Republican politics in Connecticut. He was a member and secretary of the Republican National Committee during the Lincoln administration, and one of the executive committee in charge of his reelection. Throughout most of his life Sperry's great influence in politics was as a committeeman behind the scenes rather than as an elected officeholder. In his later life, however, he consented to run for the federal House of Representatives and was elected to eight successive congresses, 1895-1911, when he retired. In Congress his chief interests were the tariff and the postal service. He was an ardent believer in hi g h protection, which he frequently defended on the platform, and in an efficient postal service. His particular hobby was the rural free delivery. For a quarter of a century he advocated this system in season and out. As postmaster of New Haven, 1861-86 and 1890-94, he maintained the office at such high efficiency that it was long considered a model post-office. He was offered membership on a commission to study the postal systems of Europe but declined. He died at New Haven. His second wife, Minnie B. (Newton) Sperry, to whom he was married on December 3, 1874, survived him.

[E. E. Atwater, History of the City of New Haven (1887); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Representative Men of Connecticut (1894); Who's Who in America, 1910-11; Hartford Courant, Hartford Times, New Haven Register and Springfield Republican, November 14, 1911; dates of service as postmaster from Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate, volumes XXV, XXVII (1901), XXIX (1909).]

H.H.E.


SPINNER, Francis Elias (January 21, 1802-December 31, 1890), treasurer of the United States.  Identifying himself with the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party, he was elected to Congress from the Herkimer district in 1854. In the protracted speakership contest of 1855-56 he refused to caucus with the House Democrats and was the only representative elected as a Democrat whose vote was cast for Nathaniel P. Banks [q.v.]. For the rest of that Congress he was affiliated with the Whig-Republican majority. He served on the committee that dealt with the Brooks-Sumner assault. To the two succeeding Congresses he was elected as a Republican.

(Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); N. S. Benton, A History of Herkimer County (1856); A. L. Howell, "The Life and Public Services of General Francis E. Spinner," Papers Read Before the Herkimer County Historical Society, volume II (1902).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 460:

SPINNER, FRANCIS ELIAS (January 21, 1802-December 31, 1890), treasurer of the United States, was born in that part of the town of German Flats, Herkimer County, New York, which afterwards became the village of Mohawk. He was the eldest son of the Reverend John Peter and Mary Magdalene Fidelis (Brument) Spinner. His father, a native of Werbach, Baden, had been a Roman Catholic priest in Germany, but in 1801 had renounced that faith and emigrated to America; at the time of Francis' birth he was pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church at German Flats. Francis was a pupil in four Mohawk Valley district schools and in his old age stated that he learned nothing in any of them (letter to F. G. Barry, in College and School, Utica, New York, April 1890; Hartley, post, pp. 192-95). His father apprenticed him to a confectioner at Albany and later to a saddler at Amsterdam, New York; during his spare time he devoted himself to reading and formed an acquisitiveness of mind that persisted throughout his life.

As time went on he became a merchant in Herkimer, major-general of artillery in the state militia, cashier, director, and president of the Mohawk Valley Bank. In politics he was long known as an aggressive Democrat. He was appointed to supervise the building of the state insane hospital at Utica, and during the Polk administration was auditor of the Port of New York. Identifying himself with the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party, he was elected to Congress from the Herkimer district in 1854. In the protracted speakership contest of 1855-56 he refused to caucus with the House Democrats and was the only representative elected as a Democrat whose vote was cast for Nathaniel P. Banks [q.v.]. For the rest of that Congress he was affiliated with the Whig-Republican majority. He served on the committee that dealt with the Brooks-Sumner assault, and was a member of the conference committee in charge of the long disputed army appropriation bill in the summer of 1856. To the two succeeding Congresses he was elected as a Republican by large pluralities. He became known as an outspoken and inflexibly honest representative who never left his colleagues long in doubt as to his stand on any public question.

A vigorous supporter of Lincoln, he was appointed treasurer of the United States in March 1861. In that capacity he served fourteen years, under three presidents. When he took office, the Treasury was paying out $8,000,000 a month; within sixty days the expenditure amounted to $2,000,000 a day. It was Spinner's task to guard the government's money chest in a time of perils and difficulties for which there was no precedent. In connection with the issue of Treasury notes during the Civil War years, Spinner's autograph signature--the despair of would-be forgers came to be a kind of national symbol, known to all. In the expansion of his bureau and its personnel at a time when men were needed for military service he employed a few young women, at first to count currency bills and later to take over various clerical duties, so that by the end of the war women had a definite status in the civil service. For this innovation he has always been give n the chief credit.

Following his resignation in 1875, caused by friction with the department head over responsibility for appointments, Spinner went to Jacksonville, Florida, where he lived much in the open for fifteen years. At eighty he took up the study of Greek as a mental recreation. He died in his eighty-ninth year of cancer of the face, after prolonged suffering. On June 22, 1826, he had married Caroline Caswell of Herkimer; one of three daughters survived him.

[Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); N. S. Benton, A History of Herkimer County (1856); A. L. Howell, "The Life and Public Services of General Francis E. Spinner," Papers Read Before the Herkimer County Historical Society, volume II (1902); W. R. Hooper, in Hours at Home, September 1870; reports of Treasurer of U. S., 1861-75; I. S. Hartley, Magazine of American History, March 1891, pp. 185-200; Hugh McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century (1882); J. C. Derby, Fifty Years among Authors, Books and Publishers (1884), pp. 644-46; M. C. Ames, Ten Years in Washington (1873); L. E. Chittenden, Personal Reminiscences (1893); S. P. Brown, The Book of Jacksonville (1895); New York Times, January 1, 1891; Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), January 1, 1891.]

W.B.S.


SPOFFORD, Ainsworth Rand (September 12, 1825-August 11, 1908), librarian.   In 1856 he was a delegate to the Republican national convention in Philadelphia that nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 463-464:

SPOFFORD, AINSWORTH RAND (September 12, 1825-August 11, 1908), librarian, the son of the Reverend Luke Ainsworth and Grata (R and) Spofford, was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. He was a descendant of John Spofford who came to Massachusetts with the Reverend Ezekiel Rogers' company in 1638 and in 1643 settled in what became the town of Rowley, Massachusetts. Ainsworth prepared under private tutors and at Williston Seminary for admission to Amherst College, but ill health prevented him from entering. Instead, he gave himself over to a course in books; through a long life they were his unnumbered and always unforgotten almae matres. At the age of nineteen he removed to Cincinnati, where he was successively a clerk in a bookstore, a bookseller and publisher, and, from 1859, associate editor of the Cincinnati Commercial. In 1856 he was a delegate to the convention in Philadelphia that nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency. Books appealed to him far more strongly than politics, however, and accordingly, while in Washington in 1861 after the battle of Bull Run, which his newspaper had sent him to report, he accepted an appointment as chief assistant to Dr. John G. Stephenson, then librarian of Congress. "With his entrance upon librarians hip he put away the merely contemporary, and from that moment no one could find him partisan upon a current issue, nor, except after insistent effort, could discover his opinion upon it" (Putnam, post). Following Stephenson's resignation, Spofford, on December 1, 1864, became the librarian-in-chief and directed the affairs of the Library of Congress until 1897. In that year, on the removal of the library from its old quarters in the Capitol to the building newly erected for it, he gave way to a younger man and once more took the chief assistant's position, continuing in that office until his death. On September 15, 1852, he was married to Sarah Putnam Partridge of Franklin, Massachusetts; three children were born to them.

Spofford, in his day and land, was perhaps the most widely renowned of the librarians of the old school, those masters and servants at once of the books about them, who took, or seemed to take, all that was between the covers as their province, and who counted what they brought back with them from personal journeyings over endless printed pages as of greater importance in the administration of a library than bibliographical method. With Spofford, these journeyings were unceasing; his memory retained all that he found along the way, and nothing escaped him. So extraordinary was his memory that he has been likened to the celebrated Magliabecchi. For nearly half a century he was known as an unfailing source of factual knowledge to official and unofficial Washington and to an unnumbered constituency beyond. His ability to recall on the spur of the moment a fact which he had somewhere read made him a conspicuous and even unique member of various cultural and learned societies in Washington, and was an ever ready aid to him as the author and the compiler of numerous volumes. A list of his publications, brought together by his successor as chief assistant librarian, Appleton P. C. Griffin [q.v.], and printed in the pamphlet Ainsworth R. Spofford, 1825-1908 (1909), contains no less than 184 titles. Of yet more importance to the Library, Spofford's memory seemed to carry within its recesses a complete record of the books needed in the Library collections, and never a title of the kind escaped him as he scanned the catalogues of dealers. His memory and industry together, and his astonishing success in the use of the fund for the purchase of books, which never amounted to more than $10,000 a year, enabled him to increase the collections he administered from some 60,000 items in 1861 to more than 1,000,000 items in 1897, and to lay the foundations for the National Library which he ever insisted the Library of Congress should be. Out of this notable achievement grew his other and more easily visible one, the establishment of a separate building to house the growing institution. After fully twenty years of opposition, discouragement, and delay, he prevailed upon Congress to provide for it, and in 1897 it was completed. This building (now greatly enlarged), and the many books in it which Spofford obtained are his lasting contributions to American cultural life. In choosing the quotations to be lettered here and there in the building, one that he took from Carlyle must have had its own special meaning to him: "The true university of these days is a collection of books."

[Knowledge of Spofford may be gained from his A Book for All Readers (1900) and from his "Washington Reminiscences," Atlantic Monthly, May, June 1898. See also Jeremiah and A. T. Spofford, A Genealogical Record ... Descendants of John Spofford (1888); Herbert Putnam, in the Independent, November 19, 1908, reprinted in the Library Jour., December 1908, presenting a striking picture of Spofford, "a soul aloof in a world ideal the world of books"; Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D. C., volume XII (1909); Evening Star (Washington), August 12, 1908. Certain facts in this sketch were supplied by Spofford's daughter, Miss Florence P. Spofford, Washington, D. C.]

W. A. S-e.


SPOONER, Bourne, Plymouth, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1845-1853, Vice-President, 1863-1864.  Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1847-1860.


SPOONER, Lysander, 1808-1887, lawyer, author, abolitionist leader.  Wrote, “Unconstitutionality of Slavery,” 1845. “A Defense for Fugitive Slaves,” 1850, and “A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery (and) to tell Non-Slaveholders of the South” in 1858.  This was used by the Liberty party for its political campaigns.  Spooner believed the institution of slavery was not supported by the Constitution.  He wrote The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1845.  He believed that slavery itself had no basis in law historically.  He wrote that slavery “had not been authorized or established by any of the fundamental constitutions or charters that had existed previous to this time; … it had always been a mere abuse sustained by the common consent of the strongest party” (Spooner, 1845, p. 65).  Spooner was opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act and wrote in 1850, “A Defence for Fugitive Slaves, Against the Acts… of 1793 … 1850.”

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 162; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 634-635; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 466; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 750-752; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 20; Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition.  Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Volume 2, pp. 651-652). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 466-467:

SPOONER, LYSANDER (January 19, 1808- May 14, 1887), lawyer and writer on political subjects, was born at Athol, Massachusetts, the son of Asa and Dolly (Brown) Spooner and a descendant of William Spooner who was in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as early as 1637. Lysander remained on his father's farm until the age of twenty-five, and then read law in the office of John Davis and, later, in that of Charles Allen at Worcester, Massachusetts. In defiance of the legal requirement that those not college graduates should read law for three years before practising, he opened an office. In 1835 he published a pamphlet, addressed to members of the legislature, which se cured repeal of that requirement the following year. After six years' residence in Ohio, where he protested unsuccessfully against the draining of the Maumee River, he returned to the Atlantic seaboard and in 1844 established the American Letter Mail Company, a private agency carrying letters at the uniform rate of five cents each between Boston and New York. He soon extended the service to Philadelphia and Baltimore, but, faced with many prosecution s brought by the government, was forced to abandon the enterprise within the year. Thereupon he published a vigorous pamphlet, The Unconstitutionality of the Laws of Congress Prohibiting Private Mails (1844), in which he contended that th e constitutional authority was permissive, not exclusive. It has been believed that Congress twice reduced postage rates within the following six years as a result of his activities.

Spooner was an uncompromising foe of slavery, and, believing that the institution had no constitutional sanction, advocated political organization with a view to its abolition. His Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845, reprinted with a second part added, 1847, 1853, 1856, 1860) became campaign literature of the Liberty Party. Not only did slavery lack validation in the Constitution, he contended, but it "had not been authorized or established by any of the fundamental constitutions or charters that had existed previous to this time; ... it had always been a mere abuse sustained by the common consent of the strongest party" (p. 65). His starting point was that "Law, ... applied to any object or thing whatever, signifies a natural, unalterable, universal principle. . . . Any rule, not ... flexible in its application, is no law" (p. 6). The last quotation discloses Spooner's dogmatic insistence upon natural rights. Gerrit Smith [q.v.] agreed with his legal contentions as to slavery as heartily as Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison [qq.v.] disapproved of them (see Wendell Phillips, Review of  Lysander Spooner's Essay on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery, 1847). All admitted, of necessity, that he was an inexorable logician. His A Defence for Fugitive Slaves, against the Acts ... of 1793 and ... 1850 (1850) showed the same ingenuity in argument and the same intense moral purpose; the laws being unconstitutional, "it follows that they can confer no authority upon the judges and marshals appointed to execute them; and those officers are consequently, in law, mere ruffians and kidnappers" (p. 27). For his religion as for his political and legal theory, he sought a basis in nature, as is evidenced by his The Deist's Reply to th e Alleged Supernatural Evidences of Christianity (1836). When Millerite laborers at Athol quit work to wait for the encl of the world and were arrested as vagrants, he secured their release because of a flaw in the indictments. He was a bachelor and a recluse, spending much of his time in the Boston Athenaeum. Of strong convictions and positive utterance, he had few lasting friends. The range of his interests w s wide, however, and his sympathies were warm. He defended the Irish again st British tyranny and attacked American financiers for exploitation of the public. His Essay on the Trial by Jury (1852) maintained that jurors should be draw n by lot from the whole body of citizens, and that they should be judges of law a s well as of fact. Among his other works were Constitutional Law, Relative to Credit, Currency, and Banking (1843), A New Banking System (1873), and The Law of Intellectual Property (1855).

[Thomas Spooner, Records of William Spooner, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and His Descendants, volume I (1883); Boston Sunday Globe, May 15, 1 887; Boston Transcript, May 16, 1887.]

B. M.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 634-635:

SPOONER, Lysander, lawyer, born in Athol, Massachusetts, 19 January, 1808; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 14 May, 1887. He studied law in Worcester, Massachusetts, but on completing his course of reading found that admission to the bar was permitted only to those who had studied for three years, except in the case of college graduates. This obnoxious condition at once engaged his attention and he succeeded in having it removed from the statute-books. In 1844 the letter postage from Boston to New York was twelve and a half cents and to Washington twenty-five cents. Mr. Spooner, believing that the U. S. goverment had no constitutional right to a monopoly of the mails, established an independent service from Boston to New York, carrying letters at the uniform rate of five cents. His business grew rapidly, but the government soon overwhelmed him with prosecutions, so that he was compelled to retire from the undertaking, but not until he had shown the possibility of supporting the post-office department by a lower rate of postage. His efforts resulted in an act of congress that reduced the rates, followed in 1851 and subsequent years by still further reductions. Mr. Spooner was an active Abolitionist, and contributed largely to the literature of the subject, notably by his “Unconstitutionality of Slavery” (1845), the tenets of which were supported by Gerrit Smith, Elizur Wright, and others of the Liberty party, but were opposed by the Garrisonians. He defended Thomas Drew, who in 1870 declined to take his oath as a witness before a legislative committee on the ground that in the matter it was investigating it had no authority to compel him to testify. The case was adversely decided on the ground of precedent, but the principles of Mr. Spooner's argument were afterward sustained by the U.S. supreme court. His writings include “A Deistic Reply to the Alleged Supernatural Evidences of Christianity” and “The Deistic Immortality, and an Essay on Man's Accountability for his Belief” (1836); “Credit, Currency, and Banking” (1843); “Poverty, Causes and Cure” (1846); “A Defence for Fugitive Slaves” (1856); “A New System of Paper Currency” (1861); “Our Financiers” (1877); “The Law of Prices” (1877); “Gold and Silver as Standards of Value” (1878); and “Letter to Grover Cleveland on his False Inaugural Address” (1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 634-635.


SPRAGUE, Achsa W. (c. 1828-July 6, 1862) spiritualist, author.  Known as the " preaching woman," she opposed slavery, visited prisons in numerous cities and urged reforms, and condemned what she said was the contemporary belief that "woman must be either a slave or a butterfly."

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 469-470:

SPRAGUE, ACHSA W. (c. 1828-July 6, 1862) spiritualist, author, was born on a farm at Plymouth Notch, Vermont, the sixth child of Charles (died 1858) and Betsy Sprague (died 1868). She was a connection of William Sprague, 1830-1915 [q.v.], and of the stepmother of Calvin Coolidge, who describes the family of Achsa Sprague as " very intellectual ... but nervously unbalanced" (letter to the author). At twelve she began te aching in a rural school, but a scrofulous disease of the joints overtook her when she was about twenty, and though for a time she continued her duties in a crippled condition, she later became a bedridden invalid for about six years. In 1854, having been restored to apparently normal health through the agency of "angelic powers, " she became a trance medium and later a lecturer on spiritualism, and addressed large audience s throughout the country. She is represented by tradition as having a personality of rare charm; it is plain that she had a wide following. Known as the " preaching woman," she opposed slavery, visited prisons in numerous cities and urged reforms, and condemned what she said was the contemporary belief that "woman must be either a slave or a butterfly." She abandoned the 1nateria medica of the day, experimented with magnetizing processes, with galvanic bands, with hypnotism, and with sensational seances, and came finally to a belief in mental healing, which with no strange physical manifestations had raised her almost instantly from her sick bed and seemed to her " the voice of God."

She read widely in the poets and wrote voluminously, especially during the last few years of her life. Many of her compositions were produced by automatic writing-at the rate of 4,600 lines in seventy-two hours on the first draft of ''The Poet"-in which she believed herself to be under the control of divine and mystic energies. Her poems, which display no careful craftsmanship, are spontaneous expressions of spiritual anguish and despair, appeals for economic justice and equality, or exultant affirmations of faith and hope. Only a very small part of what she produce is represented by her published books, I Still Live, A Poem for the Times (1862) and The Poet and Other Poems (1864). Among her unpublished writings, which include essays, journals, and a play, is an autobiographical poem of 162 pages, which she composed in six days in such a nervous state that spinning-wheel, latches, and roosters were muffled for her peace of mind. In 1861 she became a victim of her old affliction and died a year later at the age of thirty-four. She was buried at Plymouth.

[See biog. sketch b y M. E. G. in A. W. Sprague, The Poet and Other Poems (1864); Athaldine Smith, Achsa W. Sprague and Mary Clarke's Experiences in the First Ten Spheres of Spirit Life (Oswego, New York, 1862); O. R Washburn, in Na.t. Spiritualist; February 1, 1932; W. J. Coates, in Drift-Wind, November 1927; death notice in Rutland Weekly Herald, July 24, 1862. The chief sources are materials in the possession of the author (clippings from New England Spiritualist, 1855- 57, and other publications; diary, letters, poems, sermons, etc.), some of which are being prepared for publication.]

L. T.


SPRAGUE, Peleg (April 27, 1793-October 13, 1880), jurist, regarded slavery as a great political and moral evil.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 473-474:

SPRAGUE, PELEG (April 27, 1793-October 13, 1880), jurist, son of Seth and Deborah (Sampson) Sprague, was born in Duxbury, Massachusetts, one of a large family of children. His father, a merchant of Duxbury and for many years a member of the Massachusetts legislature, was descended from William Sprague, who came from England to Salem in 1628 and finally settled at Hingham, Massachusetts. Peleg Sprague graduated from Harvard College in 1812, and, after studying law at Litchfield, Connecticut, was admitted to the bar in 1815 and practised first in Augusta and then in Hallowell, Maine. In August 1818 he married Sarah, daughter of Moses Deming of Whitesboro, New York. They had three sons and one daughter.

Sprague was elected to the first legislature of Maine after its separation from Massachusetts and served in 1820-22. He represented Maine in the federal House of Representatives from 1825 to 1829, and in the United States Senate, 1829-35. He then entered the practice of law in Boston, was chosen a presidential elector as a Whig in 1840, and in the following year was appointed United States district judge for the district of Massachusetts. In this position he found his real vocation until his retirement in 1865.

From his college days, because of a nervous affection of the eyes, Sprague was unable to read much of the time. His trouble grew worse soon after he was appointed to the bench so that during most of his judicial career he was obliged to darken the courtroom and even to sit with eyes closed while listening to those addressing him. Nevertheless, he became a really great judge. His opinions, delivered orally, disclosed the full background of an exceptional mind trained in those powers of concentration which are sometimes characteristic of the blind. Upon his retirement a committee of the bar, headed by Benjamin R. Curtis and including Sidney Bartlett and Richard H. Dana, Jr. [qq.v.], paid merited tribute to his thorough legal knowledge, to his extraordinary "power of analysis ... united with sound judgment to weigh its results," and to his possession of "that absolute judicial impartiality which can exist only when a tender and vigilant conscience is joined to an instructed and self-reliant intellect and a firm will" (2 Sprague's Decisions, 352).

In March 1851 he delivered a notable charge to the grand jury after a mob had broken into the federal courtrooms, and rescued a negro named Shadrach who had been arrested as a fugitive slave. Though himself regarding slavery as a great political and moral evil, he reminded the grand jury that the fact that human institutions are not perfect is no justification of forcible resistance to government and the introduction of anarchy and violence. In 1854 he delivered what has been described as an epoch-making opinion in maritime law, holding that "when a sailing vessel, going free, meets a steamer, the rule ... requires the former to keep her course, and the latter to keep out of the way" (The Osprey, I Sprague's Decisions, at p. 256). This rule has survived all attacks as the guiding rule of the sea in American courts. During the Civil War (March 1863) he delivered a charge to the grand jury on the doctrine of treason and the powers of the federal government in which he "allowed of no line beyond which the government could not follow a treasonable rebellion" (Dana, post, p. 10). This address, printed and circulated by the Union League, "did more to settle the minds of professional men in this part of the country ... than anything that appeared, from whatever source, in the early stages of the controversy" (Ibid.).

Before his appointment as a judge, Harvard College had offered Sprague the chair of ethics and moral philosophy, which he declined. The law school repeatedly sought his services as a professor, without avail. He retired from the bench in 1865 because of failing health, and was entirely blind for the last sixteen years of his life. He died in Boston at the age of eighty-seven. His Speeches and Addresses (1858) contains, among others, his speeches in Congress and his charge to the grand jury in the Shadrach case; selections from his decisions were published as Decisions of Hon. Peleg Sprague, in Admiralty and Maritime Cases (cited as Sprague's Decisions), Volume I appearing in 1861, Volume II in 1868.

[Justin Winsor, A History of the Town of Duxbury (1849), p. 319; Richard Soule, Jr., Memorial of the Sprague Family (1847); W. V. Sprague, Sprague Families in America (1913); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); R.H. Dana, Jr., A Tribute to Judge Sprague (1864); New England Magazine, June 1835; Chicago Legal News, November 15, 1879; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, April 1881; Boston Daily Advertiser, October 14, 1880; judicial traditions of Judge Sprague among his successors on the bench.]

F. W. G.


SPRAGUE, Seth, Duxbury, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1848.  Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1847-1860.


SPRAGUE, William, 1830-1915, Union officer.  Governor of Rhode Island, 1860-1863.  Republican U.S. Senator from Rhode Island.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. He was one of twelve war governors who met at Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1862 to pledge themselves to support President Lincoln's policies. That same year he was reelected governor but resigned to become federal senator. He took his seat on March 4, 1863, and served until March 3, 1875.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888. Volume V, p. 638; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 457; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 475-476:

SPRAGUE, WILLIAM (September 12, 1830-September 11, 1915), governor of Rhode Island, senator, was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, the son of Amasa and Fanny (Morgan) Sprague, the grandson of William Sprague, 1773-1836 [q.v.], and the descendant of William Sprague who emigrated from England and died at Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1675. His father greatly increased the mill holdings and capital he had inherited and in 1843 was murdered, probably because he had influenced the town council to refuse a license to sell liquor near his factory. Owing to a general belief that the wrong man was convicted and executed for his murder, capital punishment was abolished soon afterward in Rhode Island. The boy received an inadequate education in schools in East Greenwich and Scituate, Rhode Island, and at Irving Institute, Tarrytown, New York. He was fifteen when he went to work in the factory store. The next year he became a book-keeper in the Sprague counting-house. When he was twenty-six, at the death of his uncle, he and his brother assumed control of the Sprague properties. He was a handsome young man, and his great wealth soon made him a prominent figure in the state. At this time he was an enthusiastic member of the Providence Marine Artillery, of which he later became colonel. In 1859 he went to Europe and returned home to find himself the Democratic nominee for governor in the impending election. After a vigorous contest, in which he was accused of astounding bribery, he won by a large majority. In 1861 he was reelected.

The outbreak of the Civil War served to heighten his popularity and to increase fabulously his wealth from the family cotton mills. Owing to his energy and financial support, a Rhode Island regiment was one of the first to reach 'Washington after the call for troops. He himself served as an aide under General Burnside and in the battle of Bull Run proved his gallantry under fire. Later he was offered the rank of brigadier-general but declined. He was one of twelve war governors who met at Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1862 to pledge themselves to support President Lincoln's policies. That same year he was reelected governor but resigned to become federal senator. He took his seat on March 4, 1863, and served until March 3, 1875. On November 12, 1863, Sprague was married to Kate Chase (see Sprague, Kate Chase), the very beautiful and much courted daughter of the secretary of war, Salmon P. Chase [q.v.]. They had four children. During his first term in the Senate he took little part in its business, but soon after his reelection he delivered a series of five speeches (National Affairs, Speeches ... in the Senate ... March 15, 17, 24, 30 and A p-r. 8, 1869, 1869), attacking what he described as the grip of capital and industry upon the organs of government. Gideon Welles (Diary, 1911, III, 565) wrote that, in spite of efforts to answer him, "Sprague's remarks remain"; but the speeches angered many of his constituents, because of bitter personal attacks and because they thought that he betrayed a distinct lack of responsibility as a legislator. In December 1870 he introduced a resolution providing for an investigation of charges against him of illicit trading for cotton in Texas during the war. The committee appointed held the charges were not sustained by the evidence at their disposal and was discharged on the ground that the session was too short for going into the matter further (Senate Executive Document 10, pt. 4, 41 Congress, 2 Session, 1871, volume I; Senate Report 377, 41 Congress, 3 Session, 1871).

About the same time his financial standing began to be questioned. With the panic of 1873, acrimonious complaints and litigation culminated in a failure involving some $20,000,000 that wiped out all but a fraction of the Sprague wealth. Domestic troubles developed also, and in 1882 he was divorced with a good deal of scandal for both sides. Moreover his name was constantly involved in the difficulties and litigation (citations, post) over the Sprague properties, of which Zechariah Chafee had accepted the responsibilities of trustee on December 1, 1873, when the three trustees first chosen by the creditors refused to act unless the creditors should protect them against personal liability for their conduct of the business. On March 8, 1883, Sprague married Dora Inez (Weed) Calvert. In 1883 he was again candidate for governor, but he was unsuccessful. He retired to "Canonchet," his large estate at Narragansett Pier, which remained a relic of his former splendor. After this house was burned to the ground, he went to live in Paris, his mind and health much shattered. He died there, and his body was brought back to his native state for burial.

[H. W. Shoemaker, The Last of the War Governors (1916); Charles Carroll, Rhode Island (1932), volume I; Benj. Knight, History of the Sprague Families in Rhode Island (1881); W. V. Sprague, Sprague Families in America (1913); Latham vs. Chafee, 7 Fed. Reports, 520, 525, Quidnick Company vs. Chafee, 13 Rhode Island, 367, 438, 442, and Hoyt vs. Sprague, 103 U. S., 613 for litigation over estate; for divorce see bibliography of sketch of wife, Kate Chase Sprague; scrapbook kept by Zechariah Chafee, the estate trustee, and now in the possession of Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Cambridge, Massachusetts; W. H. Chaffee, The Chaffee Genealogy (1909, pp. 2 37-38 for brief review of trusteeship of Sprague estate; Providence Daily Journal, April 12, 1 869, September 12, 1915; New York Tribune, August 20, 1879, December 25, 1882; Sun (New York), December 19, 1880.]

E. R. B.
K. E. C.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 638:   

SPRAGUE, William, governor of Rhode Island, born in Cranston, Rhode Island, 12 September, 1830, received his education in common schools, served in his father's factory, and engaged in making calico-prints. Subsequently he became a manufacturer of linen, woollen goods, and iron, a builder of locomotives, and an owner of railroads and steamships. In 1860-'3 he was governor of Rhode Island. He had served as colonel in the state militia, offered a regiment and a battery of light-horse artillery for service in the civil war, and with this regiment participated in the battle of Bull Run, where his horse was shot under him. He received a commission as brigadier-general of volunteers, which he declined. He also served in other actions during the peninsular campaign, including Williamsburg and the siege of Yorktown. He was chosen to the U. S. senate as a Republican, was a member of the committee on manufactures, and chairman of that on public lands, his term extending from 4 March, 1863, till 3 March, 1875, when he resumed the direction of his manufacturing establishments. He operated the first rotary machine for making horseshoes, perfected a mowing-machine, and also various processes in calico-printing, especially that of direct printing on a large scale with the extract of madder without a chemical bath. Governor Sprague claims to have discovered what he calls the “principle of the orbit as inherent in social forces.” He asserts that money is endowed with two tendencies, the distributive and the aggregative, and that when the latter predominates, as before the civil war, decadence results; but that when the former is in the ascendancy, as was until recently the case, there is progress. He received the degree of A. M. from Brown in 1861, of which university he has been a trustee since 1866. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 638.   


SPRING (nee Buffum), Rebecca, abolitionist.  Member, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS).  Daughter of abolitionists Arnold and Rebecca Buffum.  Married abolitionist, philanthropist Marcus Spring.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 41, 76)


SPRING, Gardiner, 1785-1873, Newburyport, Massachusetts, New York, clergyman, lawyer, author. American Colonization Society, Director, 1839-1840. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 639-640; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 17)


SPRING, Marcus, New York, abolitionist, founded and funded Raritan Bay Union at Eaglewood, New Jersey, an abolitionist community.  Husband of abolitionist Rebecca Buffum Spring

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 76n18)


SPRINGSTEAD, Mary, Cazenovia, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1843-1853.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.