Lucien B. Caswell (later a Republican Congressman from Wisconsin) records an 1837 encounter with Spaulding's preparations for a homestead in Rock County ("on the east border of the prairie, and where the road now leading, from Janesville to Milton passes from the prairie into the openings") in the spring of 1837, at a time when that area was still almost completely unsettled by whites; Spaulding himself had temporarily returned to Ohio.
Spaulding seems to have been highly regarded by his peers, as he repeatedly served as a judge in various fields at the Wisconsin State Fair: in 1856, he judged sheep ("Long Wool, Middle Wool, Leicester and their Grades");[9] in 1857, he served on a committee of the Rock County agricultural society and mechanic's institute which evaluated various brands of reaper and mower (bearing such names as "Atkin's Automaton" and "Ketchum's Iron Mower");[10] and at the 1858 Fair, he served as a judge of "Working Oxen, Milch Cows, and Grade Cattle".
[12] In the 1854 session of the Assembly, Spaulding is listed with a post office address of Harmony, Wisconsin; at that time, he is recorded as a member of the newly organized Free Soil Party.
[13] According to the Wisconsin Blue Book entry for the Assembly of 1863, Spaulding was a farmer from Janesville, a native of Pennsylvania, 50 years of age and a Republican.
[15] His daughter Emma Ellsworth Spaulding married Edwin Coe, himself later a Republican member of the Assembly, in September 1865.