Nicholas Spencer

Col. Nicholas Spencer, Jr. (1633–1689) was a London merchant who emigrated to Westmoreland County, Virginia, where he became a planter and which he represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Spencer later served as Secretary and President of the Council of the Virginia Colony, and on the departure of his cousinThomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper in 1683, was named Acting Governor (1683–84), in which capacity Spencer served until the arrival of Governor Lord Howard of Effingham. Spencer's role as agent for the Culpeppers helped him and his friend Lt. Col. John Washington, ancestor of George Washington, secure the patent for their joint land grant of the Mount Vernon estate.

Nicholas Spencer was born to an aristocratic English family long seated at Cople, Bedfordshire, England. The family was related to the Spencer family of Northamptonshire, with whom they shared a coat of arms. In 1531 the Spencers bought the manor of Rowlands at Cople, which they owned for several centuries. Nicholas Spencer, Sr., father of the Virginia emigrant, and his wife, the former Mary Gostwick, second daughter of Sir Edward Gostwick had several sons, of these William inherited the family estates but died childless after making his heir his nephew, also William, son of his next-brother Nicholas who had moved to Virginia. Another brother, Robert Spencer later removed from Surry County, Virginia, to Talbot County, Maryland, where his descendants long lived at Spencer Hall, the family plantation.

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