Samuel Spencer was born in East Haddan, Connecticut on January 21, 1734. He was the son of Samuel Spencer and Jerusha Brainerd. He graduated from Nassau College (now
Princeton University) in 1758. (He later received a LLD from Princeton in 1788.) After graduation in 1758, he moved to the Cheraws District in South Carolina where he married Phillipa Sybil Tisdale. His children were Mary, Nancy Anne, Claudius, and William Samuel Spencer. He moved to Anson County before 1774 and acquired over 2,000 acres of land in Anson County. He was elected to represent Anson County in the 1st
North Carolina Provincial Congress in New Bern in 1774. He was again elected to the 3rd Provincial Congress in August 1775 in Hillsborough and the 4th Provincial Congress in Halifax in April 1776. He was one of three judges appointed to the first North Carolina Supreme Court in 1777. He was on the board of trustees of the
University of North Carolina in 1789 and 1790. He was a leader of the Anti-Federalists in the North Carolina Conventions in 1788 (in Hillsborough) and 1789 (in Fayetteville). He was one of three jurists to hear the first case before the
North Carolina Superior Court in 1787. ==Footnotes==