A Standard History of Waupaca County, Wisconsin. An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial, Educational, Civic and Social Development.

              HISTORY OF WAUPACA COUNTY ,   467
Ira Spencer. The Spencer family has had a long and honorable participation in the life and affairs of AVaupaca County, and there are several of the name who deserve special recognition in this publication.
Air. Ira Spencer, who now lives retired at Waupaca, was born in Franklin County, New York, August 22, 1842, and is now in his seventy- fifth year. When he was eight years of age he came with his father to Waupaca County in 1850, and the education which was begun in the public schools of his native state was continued here, though the oppor¬ tunities were very meager and the schools of the backwoods sort. He had to walk a distance of three miles from his home to the only available school in the neighborhood. He grew up on a farm, adopted farming as his regular vocation, and for upwards of fifty years gave his attention almost exclusiyely to that business. He acquired a fine estate of 234 acres, but some years ago he sold out and removed to Waupaca in 1901, and now lives retired.
Air. Spencer is an honored veteran of the Civil war. In 1864, at the age of twenty-two, he enlisted in Company A of the Forty-second Wiscon¬ sin Infantry, and was in active service until the close of the war. He afterwards became a charter member of the Post of the Grand Army of the Republic at Waupaca, and has always kept up his associations and affiliations with his old comrades.   Politically he is a democrat.
He married Miss Hattie Thomas, of AVaupaca County, who died June 21, 1900. Mr. Spencer is a member of AVaupaca Lodge, No. 123, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. Beside his interests in his home county he has some investments in Texas lands.
Captain Thomas Spencer, father of Ira, was a prominent early settler of Waupaca County. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, March 13, 1789, and had passed his majority only a few years when the second war with Great Britain broke out, and he served with the rank of captain in the American army during that struggle. In Franklin County, New York, he married Hannah Aikens, who was born on Cape Cod, Massachu¬ setts, in 1799. She died in 1849. Captain Spencer had followed farming in Franklin County, New York, but after the death of his wife he removed to Waupaca County, Wisconsin, and laid a warrant given him by the Government on eighty acres in Lind Township. Subsequently he added eighty acres more, and he lived there in comfort, gradually improving his land, untilhis death on July 27, 1881. Thomas Spencer and wife were the parents of four children: Rodney A., who died at the age of fourteen; Laura D,, Myra and Ira.
Laura D. Spencer was born in Franklin County, New York, February 14, 1835, came to Waupaca with her father, and in 1857 married Air. Charles W. Chesley. Air. Chesley, who was long and favorably known in Waupaca, was born in Canada June 8, 1822, a son of Peter and Eliza¬ beth (Duesler) Chesley. His parents came to Waukesha, Wisconsin, and Peter Chesley died there, while Elizabeth Chesley spent her last years with her son Charles and passed away November 12, 1880, at the age of eighty-one. Charles W. Chesley was for many years engaged in the hardware business at Waupaca.   He was one of the early merchants, and