Spencer Records (December 11, 1762 – February 17, 1851) was born in
Sussex County,
Delaware; he was an early pioneer of the
American Midwest, who moved with his large family as a boy, in 1766, from the East Coast over the
Appalachians into the area of
Fort Pitt in Western
Pennsylvania (now
Pittsburgh). After staying there a few years, the family moved down the
Ohio River into
Kentucky,
Indiana, and
Illinois. His narrative of these travels, which he wrote in 1842 at the age of 80, is a first-hand account of the early settlement of the
Midwest. He served in the Pennsylvania militia during the
American Revolutionary War. He died in
Mount Auburn, Indiana at the age of 87.