Spencer is an unincorporated community in Henry County, Virginia, United States. It takes its name from its earliest settler, James Spencer Sr., who moved from Loudoun County to Henry County with his sons in the eighteenth century. Spencer's son ensign James Spencer, Jr. died of wounds suffered during the Revolutionary War.Spencer was the founding site of the Spencer Bros. Tobacco Company, as well as the D.H. Spencer & Sons Tobacco, both begun by the Spencer family, with operations at Spencer, and later at Martinsville, Danville and elsewhere. The family-owned firm later became one of the nation's largest manufacturers of plug chewing tobacco with its well-known brand 'Calhoun' and others. The Spencer family built Grassdale Farm, their tobacco plantation, beginning in the eighteenth century. Grassdale, once called "The Homestead," is on the National Register of Historic Places.