Phips, Spencer, 1685 - 1757

Spencer Phips (1685-April 4, 1757) was born Spencer Bennett, the son of David and Rebecca Bennett of Rowley, Massachusetts and the adopted son of Sir William Phips.  A graduate of Harvard College (1703), he was appointed justice of the peace for Middlesex County in 1713 and colonel of a regiment of cavalry.  In 1721 Phips was appointed to Governor's Council and continued until 1724. In the summer of 1725 Massachusetts authorities appointed him and two other men trustees of the Hassanamesit Indians.  In 1732 he became Lieutenant Governor and served under Jonathan Belcher and William Shirley.  During King William's War, he offered payment for Indian scalps of the Penobscot, Norridgewock, and other Eastern Indians.  In 1752 Phips organized a conference with the Eastern Indians, but four years later he issued a proclamation of war against the Penobscot, ordering his soldiers to "embrace all opportunities of pursuing, captivating, killing, and destroying all and every of [them]."  Samuel Gardner Drake, A Particular History of the Five Years French and Indian War in New England and Parts Adjacent (Albany, NY: J. Munsell, 1870), 82-83.  Connole, The Indians of the Nipmuck Country in Southern New England, 248-249.  Image courtesy of Wikipedia.