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CEMETERY HISTORY OF THE TOWNOF SPENCER, NEW YORK. CIVIL institutions had their beginnings in this part of our state in the closing years of the eighteenth century. Men, who had penetrated this western wilderness as soldiers of the Sullivan Expedition of 1779, in pursuit of the hostile Iroquois, took note of the resources of the country and soon came back accompanied by their friends and neighbors, with the peaceful intention of founding here their homes. It was in about the middle of President Washington 's administration that Drake and Barker, our first settlers, arrived. They were soon followed by the Hobart, Spaulding, Underwood, Purdy, Ferris, Palmer, Hugg, Holmes,Carey, Hall, Bidlack, Mosher, Jones, Fisher, Cowell, Valentine, Watson. Mead, Lott, McQuigg, Giles, Andrews and many other pioneer families. And, following them closely all the way, came an attendant that had Dogged the footsteps of some of them during Indian wars and on Revolutionary battlefields, and had threatened all of them during the whole arduous course of pioneer life,�whether they marched, camped, builded, Sowed, or reaped,�an attendant that was sure to triumph over each of them at last Death.
  Very soon after the completion of a few isolated cabins within time present limits of the town, a young man of seventeen, Prescott Hobart, was stricken down. His name is first on the long roll of Spencer's dead. He was buried on his father's farm until land was set off from the estate of Joseph Barker, about 1800, for cemetery purposes in "Drake Settlement," now Spencer. This is the old cemetery opposite the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Andrew Butts says that the first cemetery was on the ground now used by the High School as an athletic field, but that the spot was soon given up because it was not adapted to cemetery purposes.
  The three older churches of the town, Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian, have been situated in plots that were at some time adjacent to cemeteries. At least two of the churches followed the cemeteries, in the absence of data, who can tell whether the Methodist church or the old cemetery back of it was first in order of time? Certainly the Baptist church moved away from the cemetery adjacent to it, and the Methodist cemetery adjacent to the Church was long ago discontinued, while the old cemetery of Drake Settlement" remains.
  
 
  As to church edifices, the Congregationalists were the first to secure a church home... A church site was deeded by Elihu and Sarah Butts to the trustees of the society, Tunis Riker, Thomas Pert, Ebenezer Sabin, Urial Woodruff. James Cook and William Loring. August 25, 1826. Soon the church building was erected at no small cost to the church of that day. One of the most sacrificing members was Thomas Pert. This society immediately became very strong in the number and personnel of its members, as existing records show. An addition was made to the church building in 18. The first church to be built in town was to receive a bell from Judge Spencer from the town was named, but it never reached us.
 
 
  The ground on which the-Methodist Episcopal Church stands as deeded to George Fishier, Isaac Kennedy, Elihu Butts, Abraham Garey and Peter Lott as "trustees in trust," May 16, 1827, by Andrew and Esther Purdy, for one dollar.
  
 
  The early meetings of the Baptist church were held at a log school-house in North Spencer. Then Huggtown. This church is now tile Baptist church at West Danby. In 1823, the Baptists in the Eastern part of the town left the parent church in North Spencer and formed the Second Baptist Church. They held their meetings at Cowell's Corners, which presently became known as the "Baptist Corners." When the parent society removed to West Danby, in 1828, this new organization became the Baptist Church of Spencer. In 1835, this society built a house of worship on the lot which bounds the old cemetery at the Baptist Corners on the west. This church was used until 1853-4, when the present commodious edifice in the village was built. Beside the cemeteries already mentioned, a plot on the old Isaac Hugg farm at North Spencer was early used for interments, as were smaller plots in Crumtown and on the farm now owned by W. B. Garatt.