Col. Nicholas Spencer was a London merchant who emigrated to Westmoreland County, Virginia, where he became a planter and which he represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Spencer later served as Secretary and President of the Council of the Virginia Colony, and on the departure of his cousin Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper in 1683, was named Acting Governor (1683–84), in which capacity Spencer served until the arrival of Governor Lord Howard of Effingham.

Spencer's role as agent for the Culpeppers helped him and his friend Lt. Col. John Washington, ancestor of George Washington, secure the patent for their joint land grant of the Mount Vernon estate.

Spencer married Frances, the daughter of Col. John Mottrom of Coan Hall of Northumberland County, Virginia.They named one of their sons, Mottrom, after John Mottrom, and another son William, returned to England for schooling and remained there, serving as a Whig Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire he married Lady Catherine Wentworth, daughter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Cleveland. Following the early death of William, his brother Nicholas Jr. returned to England to succeed to the family estates. They also had sons John died in Virginia in 1708, and Francis, who inherited Mount Vernon and d. 1720, and at least one daughter Lettice.

The Cople estates were sold to the Duchess of Marlborough after the death of Francis, but the plantations in Virginia, by contrast, remained intact, descending through a female line.