When I was little my mother told me about my ancestor who lived in a cave and his best friend who lived in a tree. Somehow over time, or perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention (most likely), I thought that she said my ancestor lived in a tree. In my childish imagination I conjured up something like Swiss Family Robinson and thought how fantastic it would be to live in a treehouse. Later, I realized that the reason the story was told to me is because supposedly (family lore) my 3rd great-grandfather John Spencer DeMumbrie was named after this treehouse man. Now, I can’t disprove this story. But I can tell you the story of Thomas Sharp Spencer.
Most everything I can find on Thomas Sharp Spencer comes from the 1908 book Early History of Middle Tennessee by Edward Albright (another public domain book!). Here’s his story:
Described as a long-hunter by the Mansker Chronicles, Thomas Sharp “Bigfoot” Spencer was born about 1758 in Virginia. He traveled from his home in Virginia to Bledsoe’s Lick, now Castalian Springs, Sumner County, Tennessee, about 7 miles northeast of Gallatin, Tennessee and about 36 miles northeast of Nashville, in the Spring of 1776.
Now, Albright says that Thomas and a friend of his planted in the summer and reaped corn in the Autumn of 1776, thus being the “first crop of grain in Middle Tennessee”. I would like to point out that the Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee and Shawnee had lived in the area for YEARS. So it most definitely wasn’t the first grain crop. In addition, other settlers had crops, so it is doubtful that it was even the first grain by a settler. Perhaps the first on record?
So, the tree. Legend has it (along with a pretty nifty drawing) that Thomas lived for at least three years in a hollowed out Sycamore tree, dubbed “Spencer’s Tree” or “Spencer’s House” by the other people in the area.
Thomas Sharp Spencer and his hollow tree (source Early History of Middle Tennessee by Edward Albright)
He eventually built himself a house on a large parcel of land, which was named “Spencer’s Choice” due to him being forced in 1781 by North Carolina to choose a parcel out of four (North Carolina having owned that part of Tennessee at the time).
Spencer’s Choice (source Early History of Middle Tennessee by Edward Albright)
In the Fall of 1793 Thomas was returning to Spencer’s Choice after making a trip to Virginia when he was attacked and killed by a band of natives that were lying in wait.
He never married and never had children (that anyone is aware of, at least).
Something I found amusing when I was searching around came from the 1909 book Historic Sumner County, Tennessee by Jay Guy Cisco: “He was a nephew of that Judge Samuel Spencer, who issued the warrant for the arrest of John Sevier for high treason in 1788, and who was killed by a turkey gobbler.” I still want to know how one gets killed by a turkey gobbler.
So, you may be wondering how he got the name Bigfoot. Well, I am going to tell you that story, along with some other fantastic stories I have found on another blog that make this man a legend, much like Paul Bunyan and John Henry.
From Albrights book: “He was sick and lying on a blanket by a fire near where two of the settlers were building a cabin. For a long time he watched them both struggle under the weight of a log trying in vain to put the end of it in place. Finally he arose from his blanket, walked to the cabin, took hold of the log and brushing the men aside threw it into position with apparent ease. Spencer had a large foot, huge even in proportion to his immense body. During his first winter at Bledsoe’s Lick, Timothy Demonbreun…was conducting a trading station near Nashville , and had associated with him a party of hunters from Indiana and Illinois. One morning just at daybreak Spencer, who was himself a mighty hunter, and who happened to be in that neighborhood, chased a herd of buffalo close by the door of a hut in which one of these Frenchmen was sleeping. It had been raining and the ground was very soft. The sleeping hunter, aroused by the noise of the chase, came out and seeing Spencer’s footprint in the mud near the door, became frightened, swam the Cumberland River, and ran north through the wilderness until he reached the French settlement at Vincennes. There he related his experience and declared he would never return to a country that was inhabited by such giants.”
Thoughts from Hunter on Livejournal wrote in 2008 several interesting stories about Thomas. He writes that Thomas was an enormous man, weighing nearly 400 pounds. In addition to the same story transcribed above by Edward Albright concerning Timothy Demonbreun, hunter671 of Thoughts from Hunter writes: “At a store at French Lick (now Nashville) Spencer had picked up something from the shelf and the storekeeper, a man named Demonbreun, thought Spencer meant to steal it so he struck Bigfoot in the face. Spencer promptly picked the storekeeper up, pulled him across the counter and proceeded to grease him head to foot in buffalo tallow.” I am still looking for the source of this story. There has to be more to it!
As I said before, I can’t prove or disprove the family story that Spencer DeMumbrie was named after this man or not, but as far as our family is concerned he was Timothy Demonbreun’s best friend.
