Lysander spooner biography samples

Chapter 1

Lysander Spooner came from the flintly farmland of rural New England. He was born January 19, 1808, on his father's farm near Athol, Massachusetts, the second child and second son in a family of six sons and three daughters.

Not a single word has survived from Lysander's hand about his father, Asa Spooner (1778-1851); the father evidently was of strong authority. In the tradition of rural New England, he was, according to a family genealogist, “a man of great independence and individuality of character.” [1]

Asa Spooner was in turn the son of Wing Spooner, a captain in the Revolutionary War, who brought to his family many of the reform impulses of the eighteenth century.

Asa was a lone advocate of temperance, which, when first introduced found only one other supporter in the Athol area. Although a favorite reform of religious societies, temperance owed most of its original impetus to the eighteenth century deists.

We can only speculate about Asa’s religious opinio