(Look Back with Bob Enoch - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Last month the 1939 story of Vienna and the Spencer family by Minnie Kendall Lowther told about the settlement of Vienna in 1794 by Dr. Joseph Spencer. She continues telling about the Spencer family:

Their Burial Ground

Just off Williams Avenue [now 28th Street], less than two squares from the carline, almost in the heart of the town they founded, they lie in a small neglected enclosure on their own plantation, beneath a large tree of the forest which overshadows the spot. Old broken slabs, which suggest markers for their graves, are crumbling. And in one corner a shaft of more modern times rises above the fence. It bears this inscription:

“William Spencer, born 1786, died February 10, 1869.”

On the other side, just as if the names had been gathered from the crumbling stones around, we read:

“Dr. Joseph Spencer, and Deborah, his wife. Joseph and Charles Spencer, their sons.”

Another interesting feature of the burial ground is the sleepers outside the enclosure. Large slabs of brown mark these graves and the inscription reads”

“Elias Gates died Jan. 1814, aged 78 years and 3 mos.”

“In memory of Captain Elijah Gates died April 11, 1802, aged 58.”

The Wood County records show that Dr. Spencer sold lands to Elias and Jespah Gates here in 1804, and that is evidence that they lived here before that time. But the point of interest in this is that from a reliable source we learned recently, that someone who had long been looking for the grave of Elias Gates came upon it unexpectedly here; and that informant said that this Elias Gates was supposed to have been a brother of General Horatio Gates, of the American Revolution, whose home was at “Traveler’s Rest” in Berkeley County for so many years. We have been unable to verify this, but Elias Gates was born in 1726; and Horatio, in 1728, so that is some evidence.

The Spencer Home As It is Today

Few more interesting landmarks are to be found in Wood County today than the old Spencer Home at Vienna. Here, 1939, with all its modern improvements, reaches back across one hundred and forty-five years and clasps the hand of 1794, and these different periods that lie between are most picturesquely blended in house and lawn today. As we already know, William Spencer, the last of the family to occupy it, passed from sight in 1869, and it finally fell into the hands of the late Charles Shattuck, of Parkersburg, who sold the four acres including the ruins of the original house, and the grounds surrounding it, to Attorney James McCluer of Parkersburg in 1912. The house had been torn down, but Mr. McCluer used the material from it — hewn oak timber fastened together with wooden pins, and timber from an old barn in the construction of the present house on the old original stone foundation over the basement, which is the type of a hunting lodge of other days, and turned it into a summer home, which the family has enjoyed for twenty-seven years. The original hearthstone is there; the old stone door steps, the brick from the old chimney forms the one of today, the steps still run down toward the river, and the shrubbery of yesterday with the red berries, almost surround the side and one end of the house. The old well has been placed on the retired list and brick show clearly where the old “oaken bucket” once dropped into it. So many reminders of the early days are everywhere visible. The house stands at the end of Williams Avenue [28th Street] and just across the road from the Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company, Vitrolite, and at a vantage point overlooking the railroad and the river — just such a site as the first settler would naturally select when he had the power of choice unmolested.

Excerpt from The Parkersburg News

March 5, 1939

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Bob Enoch is president of the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society. If you have comments or questions about Look Back items, please contact him at: roberteenoch@gmail.com, or by mail at WCHPS, PO Box 565, Parkersburg, WV 26102.