From pp. viii-ix: Elijah Spencer "received frequent expressions of the high esteem of his fellow citizens and the confidence they reposed in him. He began life with empty hands, accepting hard labor as his means of livelihood. With vigorous resolution and robust energy, he overcame all the difficulties that obstructed his advancement. . . . He belonged to the period when honorable service was the rule in public life, and mercenary aims the rare exception, and even in that time his public career was one to be mentioned with special respect. . . . James Spencer, who was the Supervisor of Jerusalem, in 1797, may have been the father rather than the brother of Elijah Spencer, as stated on page 260, and the latter hypothesis is the most probable. . . . The portrait of Elijah Spencer is engraved from a photograph taken rather late in life, and the effort to relieve the features a trifle from the marks of age and infirmity, has, perhaps, been rather too successful. He was, till past middle age, a man of remarkable fresh and youthful appearance, and his portrait, painted on ivory while he was a member of Congress, depicts him with a clear and ruddy countenance and a luxiant head of bright red hair."Elijah Spencer came to Yates County with his parents at age 15 in 1791. He later served as Supervisor of the Town of Benton in 1810-1814, 1816-1818. "In 1818, he was chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Ontario County. That year Milo was set off from Benton, and Elijah Spencer was the first Supervisor of Benton as thus formed; and after Yates county was set off from Ontario, he was again Supervisor in 1826-27-28. In 1819 he was one of the seven members representing Ontario County in the Assembly. In the Seventeenth Congress (1821), he and William B. Rochester, represented the twenty-first district of this State, embracing all the State west of Seneca Lake, except Steuben County. Finally, in 1846, he was honored with a seat in the State Constitutional Convention of that year. His name was always a tower of strength with the people. . . . He transformed his homestead from total wildness to a beautiful and productive farm, accumulated a good estate, and died in 1852, at the age of seventy-six."
In the index to probate records on the USGenWeb—Yates Co., NY web site is the following entry for the estate of Elijah Spencer:
- Name of Deceased: Elijah Spencer
Date probate filed in Surrogate's Court: 1852
Court Reference No.: 122D
Names in probate file: George W., Benjamin F., Sarah, Elijah P. & Sarah J. Spencer; Harriet & Thomas H. Locke; Mary S. & Henry C. Wheeler
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