DEATH OF A SOLDIER.
The pioneer residents of Manning will most likely remember Morgan Spencer, who prior to ten or twelve years ago was a familiar figure up on the streets of the city. He is dead now, and his lonely wanderings on earth are o'er. Since 1895 he had been an inmate of the Soldiers' home at Marshalltown. Some time on Thursday, December 20, the old gentleman wandered away from the home and when the next day arrived and he had not returned a search was instituted. He was found late in the evening about three miles from the city, near a pond, in an unconscious condition, and with scarcely any clothing on.

Spencer must have been close to eighty years old at the time of his death. He served as a private in Company H., 168th New York infantry. Only one son who resides at Bagley, survives the deceased. The wife and mother passed from earth many years ago.

Back in the middle 1880s, when he lived in or about Manning, he was the champion checker, player of Iowa, having defeated all the best players in the state. In those days he thought of little else but the checker game.