Ichabod Spencer
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Ichabod Smith Spencer (February 23, 1798 – November 23, 1854) was a popular 19th-century American Presbyterian preacher and author.J. M. Sherwood, "Sketch of Life and Character", in ''Sermons of Ichabod S. Spencer - Volume 1'' (1864). Spencer was descended from Thomas Spencer, an early settler of
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, who died in 1687. Around 1786, Spencer's father moved to the
Rupert Rupert may refer to: People * Rupert (name), various people known by the given name or surname "Rupert" Places Canada *Rupert, Quebec, a village *Rupert Bay, a large bay located on the south-east shore of James Bay *Rupert River, Quebec *Rupert' ...
, Bennington, County, Vermont. Spencer was born there, the youngest but one of eleven children. Those who knew Spencer in his youth contended that "he belonged to the class of careless, thoughtless, and gay young men". His father, a farmer, died while Spencer was young, and he thereafter moved to Granville, Washington County,
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, where he engaged in manual labor for something like a year. During this year, a revival of religion visited this town, and Spencer became a Christian. He was encouraged to enter the ministry, and undertook to do so. He entered Union College in 1819, graduating in 1822. He considered a career in law, and spent some time studying for the bar, but ultimately decided to become a minister, and was licensed as such in November, 1826. In May 1828, Spencer married Hannah Magoffin, and in the summer of 1828, he accepted an offer to minister at the
Congregational Church Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
in
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. There, Spencer gained distinction as a preacher, and in the spring of 1832 he was solicited to move to the Second Presbyterian Congregation of Brooklyn, where he was installed on March 23, 1832. Spencer remained in Brooklyn for the rest of his life, where he wrote extensively, and "published verbatim reports of pastoral conversations that other ministers could use as a guide". Spencer was pro-slavery, and among his most prominent works was ''The Religious Duty of Obedience to the Law'', which specifically called for obedience to the Fugitive Slave Law, contending that resistance to the slave law constituted "positive rebellion against government; and either the resistance must be crushed, or the government be overturned". Elizabeth Fox-Genovese,
Eugene D. Genovese Eugene Dominic Genovese (May 19, 1930 – September 26, 2012) was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He was noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and s ...
, ''The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholder's Worldview'' (2005), p. 629.


See also

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Hampshire Colony Congregational Church The Hampshire Colony Congregational Church of Princeton, Illinois was founded in 1831 and was the first Congregational church in Illinois. Its Richardsonian Romanesque church building, which was built in 1905-06, is listed on the National Registe ...


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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spencer, Ichabod 1798 births 1854 deaths category:People from Rupert, Vermont American Presbyterian ministers 19th-century American clergy Union College (New York) alumni