Samuel Pennington

The following summary of Samuel's life is still being researched but will give a rough idea of what is known so far. Samuel was probably born between 1790 and 1794 in Virginia. He married about 1815 to Elizabeth (Betsy) Anderson, probably in Grayson County, Virginia. One deed record is known to exist about 1820 and Samuel is mentioned in Grayson County tax records between 1816 and 1848. He briefly moved to Scott County, Virginia about 1835/6 and returned to Grayson in the mid 1840s. He hasn't been found after 1848 but we have the statement that Samuel died in 1862. So there is no telling what further research will find.

Outline for Samuel Pennington

Birthdate:
1775-1794 - The 1820 Grayson County, Virginia Census states he was between 26 and 45 years old.
1790-1800 - The 1830 Grayson County, Virginia Census states he was between 30 and 40 years old.
1780-1790 - The 1840 Scott County, Virginia Census states he was between 50 and 60 years old.

Birthplace:
- Grayson County, Virginia - 1906 affidavit of dau. Celia Kilby - Sizemore Appl. No. 5187
- The 1880 census for Stephen Pennington states his father was born in Virginia.
- Research is needed to find Samuel's other living children in the 1880 census.
- His son's Cherokee Application states he was raised in Powell's Valley - so this might also be a good place to look.

Marriage:
-Samuel was probably married about 1815 as he was listed with two daughters in the 1820 census. Betsy's family lived in Grayson County, Virginia so this would seem to be the logical place. However, no marriage record has been found.

Second Marriage?:
-It is possible that Samuel might have been married a second time and moved to Tennessee.

Deathdate:
-His daughter, Celia (Pennington) Kilby, states Samuel died in 1862.
-Samuel hasn't been found on any of the census reports after 1840 or any county records after 1848.
-Hmmm, it's hard to tell

Deathplace:
-The last known county records have Samuel in Grayson County, Va. But if he remarried, it appears more likely that he would have died in western Virginia or somewhere across the border in Tennessee.

Burial:
-There is a good chance there is no headstone. However, it also isn't quite clear where to start looking.

Parents:
-There were some affidavits filed between 1905-1908 to claim government money for Indian blood through Samuels mother. Family tradition has it that the connection was never accepted and the family didn't receive any money from the applications. So everyone seems to agree that the relationships as stated break down somewhere. The problem has been to figure out which of the statements are true and which aren't. There are many wonderful details of the early family that aren't found anywhere else and are difficult to prove. So the integrity of the family history depends on the outcome.
-Mae Pennington felt that the incorrect relationship was probably that Andrew was not Samuels father. This has proved to be at least partially correct as the Andrew Pennington who married Hattie Blevens was born in 1809. Since our Samuel was probably born about 1790, his birthdate couldn't be before that of his father.
-To make it more interesting, this Andrew had a son, also named Samuel Pennington, who was born about 1845 in Ashe County, N.C. So the attempt seems to be to use similar names from different families to come up with the same ancestor. But by doing this, it casts at least some doubt on all of the early stories because it is unknown which individual from which family the stories refer to.
-It appears that the Penningtons may have been under some pressure from the Sizemores to apply for the Government money. In comtemplating how and why people could be pressured into making statements that may not be true, a seemingly new thought has emerged. What if the statements made were the truth and they let the person interviewing make the assumption that the two families were the same. This doesn't seem to strictly hold up after rereading the applications, but it did lead to the thought that maybe the breakdown was between Andrew and Hattie. If the family names were so similar that our Samuels father was named Andrew, then all the family stories would be true. The only incorrect statement left would be the link through marriage to the Blevins and Sizemore families.
-This has opened up the possibility of many family relationships that now seem to fit. Research indicates there is an older Andrew Pennington (born 1745) who died in 1800 around Grayson County. Samuel would have been fairly young so it explains why he would have been bound out (apprenticed?) to someone at an early age. The statements made in the Cherokee Applications now make sense:

It is interesting to note the manner in which Celia Kilby made some statements about her family in Cherokee Application No. 5187. She stated she was descended from Andrew and Hattie's son, Samuel Pennington. But when the question asked her to list all of Andrew's children, she only put down Celia Cornette. This would imply that Samuel and Celia were the only two children in the family.

The only other known statement on the family was made by Celia's brother, Claban Pennington in Cherokee Application No. 5190. He stated that 'My father's mother ... died when my father was quite a boy. There were only two children--a boy and a girl. My father was raised a bound boy by a man by the name of Randlow in Powell's Valley.'

Sybil Barker's ancestor, Celia Pennington, appears to have an overlapping story. Celia's parents died early and there were only two children in the family, a boy and a girl. Celia married Reuben Cornett and raised her family in Grayson County, Virginia. The known details on this family are listed in a link from the previous Pennington page.

The Cherokee Applications were reviewed numberous times. But they never made any sense while assuming that the breakdown was between Samuel and Andrew. It wasn't until the link between Andrew and Hester was considered the bad one that app the pieces started coming together. The known details now fit together in a way that none of the previous ideas ever came close to matching.



Sources


The 1810 Grayson County Census was lost.



1820 Grayson County, Virginia Census

Saml Penington   0001    201



1830 Grayson County, Virginia Census

Saml Penington   010001   230001



1840 Scott County, Virginia Census

Saml Pennington   22000001    0011001



1850 Census Index for Samuel Pennington:

Penington, Samuel   Jack 220 17th Civ  1850 Tennessee 
Pennington, Samuel  Warp 014 9th dist  1850 Tennessee 
Pennington, Samuel  Hard 202 6th civi  1850 Tennessee 
Pennington, Samuel  Pend 014 50th dis  1850 Virginia  
None                                   1850 North Carolina

1850 Census Reports:

Saml Pennington  40 M Va  #210  Pend 014  Va.  film 58142 Pt 37
Lydia            26 F Va
Mary E            6 F Va
Sarah C           6 F Va
Richard M         5 M Va
Reuben H          3 M Va
Vincent           2 M Va
Precilla J.    6/12 M Va


David Henry      48 M Ky  #161 Warren Co. film 58138 pt 30   014
...
Samuel Pennington 18 M Ten


Samul Penington  48 M Ten  #857  26 Oct 1850
Lydd(ay)         60 F ditto
Jane             18 F
Simion Penington 75 M N.C.

Samuel Pennington 38 M Tenn  #25  1850 Hard 202
Emily J?          36 F NC
William A.        12 M Tenn
Charles S          8 M Tenn
Sarah C.           7 F Tenn
Mary J.            5 F Tenn
James T.           3 M Tenn
Samuel W        5/12 M Tenn
Sarah             15 M Va   (this is the way it was copied but it doesn't make sense)


? - Our Samuel doesn't seem to be one of these.  Where would he have been?



Compilation of Census Reports

Name                 1820      1830      1840      1850   1860  born marr place
                     Grayson   Grayson   Scott

Samuel Pennington    1775/1794 1790/1800 1780/1790
Elizabeth            1805/1810 1790/1800 1790/1800 ----  ----
Female               1815/1820 1820/1825
Female               1815/1820 1820/1825
Stephen              ----      1820/1825           1821  1821   1821 1842
Lucy                 ----      1820/1825 1820/1825 1824         1824 
Maria                ----      1825/1830           1826         1826 
Celie                ----      1825/1830 1825/1830       1820   1828 1848
Claiborne            ----      ----      1830/1835       1830   1830 1857
Elisha               ----      ----      1830/1835       1836   1832 1859 
male (David?)        ----      ----      1835/1840 1836
male (Andrew?)       ----      ----      1835/1840 1840
?-did Stephen stay in Grayson Co working for someone else when Samuel moved? He married there in 1842. It seems that his two older sisters could have married by 1830 or perhaps more likely died.
Mae Pennington is the one who told me that family tradition said that Samuel 'returned to Tennessee following Elizabeth's death' and also that he remarried and had other children. I believe there is evidence in Claiborne's ECA testimony to establish that Samuel lived some early part of his life in either western Virginia or northeastern Tennessee.
-------
Mae Pennington was tenuous on the information re Samuel's second marriage and his move. She was certain that he did marry again and did live away from the Grayson/Ashe area and some family members had told her he had 'moved back to the TN area'.
-From Carolyn McAbee-Gober in June 2000.
Lee County, Virginia was formed in 1793
Scott County, Virginia was formed in 1814 from Lee and Russell
Samuel Pennington is quite elusive. I am enclosing the charts I use to record the free white males from the personal property lists. These are all the Penningtons in Grayson from 1805 to 1850, 1853-1863. I started in 1805 because, if we assune that 1790 was the year of his birth and if we assume that he might have been living in Grayson as a young man (this is just an assumption with which to start), then 1805 would have been the year before which he would have appeared on the listsrat 16 years. (I start a year before, to leave room for error, etc.) However, Samuel does not appear until 1816 and in that year the only other Pennington taxed was James. They were not, however, taxed on the same day, so they probably did not live near one another. Also note the big gaps in the years Samuel - or any Pennington - appears. He next shows up in 1822, then 1829-1835, 1844-1848 (the last two years as a Captain (Mexican War or militia?)). The question, of course, is where did he come from and where did he go; and where was he in those years of gaps? If he came from and returned to Tennessee as you suggested, then there is not too much that I can do, although I may be able to get my hands on a Tennessee census - 1850 would be nice. I also can't do too much with North Carolina.

Also notice that Samuel Pennington, who, we shall assume for the moment is the correct man, was in Grayson County in 1815 to act as surety on that marriage bond. I wonder how he was connected to James Kincanon.

I have also checked Wythe County personal property lists, 1832-39 (because it was a neighboring county as I thought they might have moved across the line); no Penningtons. The Grayson County General Index of Marriages, 1793-1953; no Samuel. There is, however, a marriage of Claibourn H. Pennington to Chairty C. Perkins, 1857, Bk. 2, p. 4.

Samuel did not die in Grayson County, re the Register of Deaths, 1855-70. He does not appear in the land grant and patent card file in the State Library. He is not in the Wythe County index to deeds.
-Research done for Mae Pennington by Susan Bracey in April 1978.

Surveyed for Samuel Pennington 100 acres of land begg. at a wo corner to William Anderson's land & running with his line thro his fields S80? E140 to a So. Anderson's corner S55 E134 joining a branch to a wo thence leaving Anderson's line N85 E20 crossing a branch to a wo N15 W94 to a So. on a ridge N45 E62 to a chestnut & cht.? oak on a high ridge. N30 W26 to a cht.? oak So. & maple on the north side of a north hill. S78 W44 to a wo. on a ridge S25 W36 to a cht. oak near a head of hollow N67 W94 to a large wo. by a branch near the Fox Creek Gap Road S67 W133 to the beginning.
Nov 21st 1820
-Grayson County, Virginia Plat Book 1 Page 420. -From Barbara Keene in July 2000.
Samuel Pennington, pltf v Jacob Williams, Deft Case. The defendant appeared by his attorney and filed his plea in writing and not guilty, and on his motion the cause is continued at his cost. -At a court begun and held for Grayson County on Monday the 15th day of October 1821. -'Mintues of Grayson County, Virginia Superior Court 1809-1821' on Jeffrey Weavers New River website.
Notes: Our Samuel could have been born in Grayson County but the earliest mention of his childhood is being raised a bound boy around Scott County. The first mention of Samuel in Grayson County records isn't until the very same year his sister, Celia, was married there in 1815. He also married about the same time and settled down on land adjoining that of his father-in-law.
After 20 years of farming in Grayson County, it seems very likely that the family would have worn out the soil on their farm. So what is the draw that causes Samuel to move back to Scott County. It would appear he had lived there longer than he had in Grayson County. Perhaps the grass just looked greener. It would be well worth doing more research to see if he may have had relatives still in the area. He had lived with his wifes relatives for a significant amount of time and perhaps now they were moving back to be close to his? Though most of the family went, there also seems a strong possibility that his oldest son remained behind or returned shortly after moving with them.
The family lives in the Scott County area of Virginia or possibly Tennessee about 7 years (1835-1842) before his wife dies. This is difficult and perhaps he did not have much support raising the family by himself. His sister, in-laws and probably oldest son (and perhaps older daughters) all lived back in Grayson County. Within one or two years, by 1844 he has brought most of his family back to Grayson County. At least one, perhaps several, of the children stayed a number of years before they too returned to Grayson County.
By this time his children are also starting to get older and begin marrying into families from the Grayson County area. Samuel is in Grayson County where the last known record mentions him in 1848. The mystery of what happened to him following this time has consumed the family for a number of decades. It is hoped that clues still remain that will answer this question.

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