Harry Spencer (1860 – 1898)
Harry Spencer was originally from Seattle. He came to Circle, Alaska in the fall of 1894 from Juneau.1) In the 1890s, partners Frank Densmore, William McPhee, and Harry Spencer opened saloons and dancehalls in Forty Mile and Circle. When Densmore got sick, McPhee took him outside leaving Spencer, a three percent owner, to run the Pioneer Hotel in Dawson with a man named Fuller, who apparently knew nothing about bookkeeping. The Pioneer was running three shifts with four bartenders and four helpers to the shift and all exchanges were in gold dust. George Pilz told a story that in the fall of 1898 Spencer drank himself sick, dying on Thanksgiving Day, and Densmore died at the same hour. Fuller was left running the saloon, a half dozen claims, and the telephone exchange owned by Densmore & Co. He was appointed administrator for both Densmore and Spencer.2) The official story is that Spencer died of typhoid pneumonia.3)