Michael Speer

"The first ancestor we know in this line is Michael Speer, either an immigrant from Ireland or belonging to another Speer family which came first to America in 1680. Which we cannot tell yet. Michael Speer's home was at the site of the present town of Speer's Ferry, Scott Co., Va which town gets its name from the fact that Michael Speer operated a ferry over the Clinch River there.

He was for seven years in the army in the Colonial and Revolutionary wars. While away at the wars, he left his eldest son, Samuel, a nineteen-year-old boy in charge.

• Samuel ferried Daniel Boone and his company across and came on to Kentucky with them, settling at Campbellsville, Ky.
• Another son, John went down into Burke Co N.C. and his son John, later came to Kentucky.
• Another of Michael's sons, Robert was known as Col Robert Speer and was for a long time in the Virginia Legislature.
• Yet another of Michael's sons was Andrew who went west to Oldham Co., Ky (my ancestors RCS)
• and the youngest of Michael's sons was Jesse, born in 1801, who married Elizabeth Solomon and they went to Indiana, and on west to S.E. Kansas, settling where the town of Galena now is. There may have been other sons and daughters." -- "The Speer Family from Scott County, Virginia," by Rollo Clayton Speer, Aug. 1, 1943.

https://archive.org/details/familyofmichaels00spee/page/n117/mode/2up

Rev. Rollo Clayton Speer theorized that Michael Spear was an immigrant from Ulster, Ireland. His home was at the present site of Speer's Ferry, Virginia, which gets its name from the fact that Michael Spear operated a ferry over the Clinch River there. Michael was for seven years in the army in colonial and Revolutionary Wars. While away, he left his oldest son Samuel, in charge of the ferry.

I can find no record of Michael Speer's revolutionary war service in Virginia.

There are Speer, Spear and Spears in Augusta County, VA as early as 1746 so it's possible that Michael(?) was born in Virginia and was not an immigrant. -- From dedpepl.blogspot.com