San Diego County Biographies
 
JOHN SPENCER

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


the able and efficient engineer of San Diego Engine Company No. 1, the oldest 
company in the city, having been organized in 1872, was born at Bingham, 
England, July 2, 1849. He there received a private-school education, and at the 
age of thirteen went into the iron works of Codna Park, at Derbyshire, the 
largest iron manufacturing establishment in the world, where he learned the 
trade of molding, remaining about two years. In 1864 he came to the United 
States, going to Galena, Illinois, where he attended a night school and ran a 
stationary engine during the day, thus improving both mind and resources. In 
1872 he went to Kansas City, running as fireman on the east end of the Santa Fe 
road, and for the following fifteen years was employed in a machine shop of the 
Union Pacific, and as engineer of the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf railroad. 
In 1887 he worked at Kansas City with Prof. J. C .Henry, on his electric railway 
system, and then came to San Diego and erected the electric railway system 
between San Diego and Old Town, and then the line on Fourth street to University 
Heights, each line about four miles in length. In April, 1888, he received his 
present appointment from the old city council.
        Mr. Spencer was married at Galena, Illinois, in 1869, to Miss Annie A. 
Chenewith and is the happy father of one child.
 
SOURCE:  An Illustrated History of Southern California:  Embracing the Counties 
of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California� Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.  p.-  386