Photo courtesy of John Hutchinson
                                The signature of Judge Spencer on an Anson County document.

Photo courtesy of John Hutchinson

The signature of Judge Spencer on an Anson County document.

<p>Photo courtesy of John Hutchinson</p>
                                <p>We’ve all see it: the Samuel Spencer marker on Highway 74, near Lilesville. Judge Spencer’s remarkable career was ended by a turkey attack.</p>

Photo courtesy of John Hutchinson

We’ve all see it: the Samuel Spencer marker on Highway 74, near Lilesville. Judge Spencer’s remarkable career was ended by a turkey attack.

It never hurts to know what can happen when turkeys attack. Especially when we’re all looking at Thanksgiving leftovers.

Samuel Spencer was one of the Pee Dee’s most brilliant men during the era of the American Revolution.

He is also, to my knowledge, the only person in the area to have been killed by a turkey.

You wouldn’t know that from the historical marker on Highway 74, near Lilesville and on the way to Charlotte. I’ve seen that marker all my life, yet never knew much about Samuel Spencer’s career.

We’ll get to the whole death-by-turkey thing in a minute. It’s a bizarre end to one of the more impactful lives in early Pee Dee history.

Samuel Spencer was born in Connecticut in 1734 and educated at Princeton (known then as Nassau Hall). He came to the Pee Dee in the early 1760s. If he wasn’t the first lawyer in the entire region, he was close.

In the 1760s, that kind of high education and social standing brought a whole lot of status.

By the age of 31, Spencer served as Anson County’s Clerk of Court. He was a militia colonel, too, upholding law and order on behalf of the British Crown. Col. Spencer and his troops faced off against Anson County rebels in 1768, and won without firing a shot. Three years later, he fought for England against North Carolina protestors. Col. Spencer’s side routed the rebels at the Battle of Alamance.

Then, his loyalties changed, quickly and completely. We don’t know why, but by 1774, Spencer was still a colonel — but was now serving on the side of the American patriots.

As a supporter of colonial rights, he served as Anson County’s representative to North Carolina’s Provincial Congress in 1774, ‘75 and ‘76. Richmond County was still a part of Anson at the time.

Soon after the Revolutionary War erupted, Samuel Spencer gave up his military commission and took a seat on North Carolina’s high court, where he served until his death.

Spencer took a break long enough, however, to be a delegate to North Carolina’s convention on ratification of the newly-proposed United States Constitution. He fought against a strong central government. He believed in small government and individual freedom — quite the transition for a man who, less than twenty years earlier, had fought colonists on behalf of the English king.

Judge Spencer also handed down one of the earliest and most important legal decisions in American history. He established the principle of judicial review, the power of the court to have the final say over whether a law is constitutional and valid. The ruling was years ahead of the United States Supreme Court’s famous decision on the matter.

By the time he reached his late 50s, Judge Samuel Spencer was a tired man. He suffered from poor health. Still, when he wasn’t at home overlooking his 5,000 acre estate (7.8 square miles, if you’re wondering), he continued to hold court across North Carolina.

In the spring of 1794, Judge Spencer was taking a break from all of his responsibilities. He took a seat on the verandah of his Anson County home near the Pee Dee River, and began to nod off. He was wearing a red cap.

Yes, we know precisely what color cap Judge Spencer wore that day. Prominent as he was, and as little as we know about his private life, it’s remarkable we know about the red cap.

There’s a reason for that.

Judge Spencer dozed on his verandah that afternoon, with his head bobbing up and down as he nodded off. A wild turkey saw the red cap moving and mistook it for another turkey shaking his wattle and itching for a fight.

No one said turkeys are smart. But, they can certainly be fierce.

The turkey attacked the judge, knocked him from his chair, and scratched and bruised him.

Judge Spencer developed sepsis from the cuts and died within a few days. He is the only person, to my knowledge, ever to be killed by a turkey in Anson or Richmond County.

John Hutchinson is the mayor pro tem for the City of Rockingham and a local historian.