Nicholas Spencer - Spencer's Business Interests and Later Life

Spencer's Business Interests and Later Life

When John Washington died in 1677, his son Lawrence, George Washington's grandfather, inherited his father's stake in the Mount Vernon property. (Following Col. Nicholas Spencer's death, the Washingtons and the Spencers divided the land grant, with the Spencer heirs taking the larger southern half of the Mount Vernon grant bordering Dogue Creek, and the Washingtons the portion along Little Hunting Creek. The Spencer heirs paid Lawrence Washington 2,500 pounds of tobacco as compensation for their choice.) Later the Washingtons bought out the Spencer interest at Mount Vernon.

Aside from acting as agent for the Colepeper interests, Spencer was frequently involved in Virginia Colony business, and he often corresponded with English administrators in London, as well as family members in Bedfordshire and elsewhere. When his cousin Thomas Colepeper departed Virginia in 1683, Spencer was named Acting Governor, in which capacity he served for nine months until the April 1684 arrival of Francis Howard, 5th Baron Howard of Effingham. Because of the early deaths of his brothers, Spencer was the only surviving son of his father Nicholas, and so inherited extensive family estates in Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire.

Spencer also was left land by other early prominent settlers in Westmoreland County. In a deposition of 1674 by Lt. Col. John Washington, for instance, who was related to the Pope family of Popes Creek, Washington testified that in his will of 24 June 1674, Washington's kinsman Richard Cole had left all his Virginia lands to Nicholas Spencer. Washington "declareth that hee hath heard Mr. Richard Cole Deceased declare that hee had made a will, and given his whole estate to younge Mr. Nicholas Spencer and further saith not." The controversial Richard Cole had also specified that his body be buried on his plantation in a black walnut coffin with a gravestone of English black marble (to be imported for the purpose) and a tombstone whose epitaph read: "Heere lies Dick Cole a grievous Sinner, That died a Little before Dinner, Yet hopes in Heaven to find a place, To Satiate his Soul with Grace."

Nicholas Spencer died in Virginia in 1688. In his will in April 1688, Spencer styled himself "of Nominy in Westmoreland Co. in Virginia." Nicholas Spencer left five sons: William, Mottrom, Nicholas Jr., John, and Francis (to whom his father left Mount Vernon). Spencer probably had at least one daughter, to whom Mottrom Spencer referred to in his will as "my sister Mrs. Lettice Barnard." In his will, filed with the English courts at Canterbury, Col. Spencer named his "singular good friends Coll. Isaac Allerton of Matchotick, Capt. George Brent of Stafford Co. (former Governor of Maryland), and Capt. Lawrence Washington" to serve as trustees of his estates. Capt. Washington, named by Spencer as a trustee, was the younger brother of Lt. Col. John Washington and was born in 1635. He and the other trustees named by Col. Spencer in his will received forty shillings for mourning rings.

Following Nicholas Spencer's death, the family's 6,000-acre (24 km2) plantation at Nomini in Westmoreland was sold. In 1709 Robert Carter purchased the Spencer property from the heirs of Col. Spencer for £800 sterling, marking the end of the Spencer family's residence in Westmoreland, and delineating the future site of Nomini Hall, the Carter family seat in Westmoreland occupying the former Spencer estate.

The English branch of the family continued to live in Bedfordshire, where members of the family served in Parliament and were large landowners. The Spencer family continued to hold its land at Cople, Bedfordshire, until the nineteenth century. "The Spencers’ Cople estates," according to the Bedfordshire County Council, "were bought by Francis Brace for the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, and the manor still was known as Rowlands when part of the Duke of Bedford’s estate at the start of the 19th century."