Manuscript Group 234, William S. Pennington (1757-1826), Revolutionary War Soldier Papers, 1780-1781
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Documents, Manuscripts, Maps, & Photographs
Manuscript Group 234,
William S. Pennington (1757-1826), Revolutionary War Soldier
Papers, 1780-1781, 0.2 linear
feet / 2 folders
Call Number: MG 234 + folder
number
Commission and a diary kept as a
lieutenant in Col. John Lamb’ s Second Continental Artillery Regiment, May 4,
1780 – March 23, 1781. Printed in NJHS Proceedings 63 (October
1945): 199-218, and 64 (January 1946): 31-42.
The commission was donated at the bequest
of A. Pennington Whitehead in 1994. His diary was probably donated by Dr.
Samuel Hayes Pennington.
The Pennington Family of New Jersey is
descended from Ephraim Pennington, one of the first settlers of Newark, New
Jersey, whose father, also Ephraim Pennington, immigrated to New Haven,
Connecticut around 1643.
William Sanford Pennington, the sixth of
the nine children of Mary Sanford (1725-1805) and Samuel Pennington (1725-1791),
was born in 1757 in Newark, New Jersey. He was probably trained as a
hatter, but at the outbreak of the Revolution joined the Continental Army and
became, in 1777, a sergeant in the Second Regiment of Artillery under Colonel
John Lamb and Major General Henry Knox. He advanced to the rank of second
lieutenant in 1780, and at the end of the war was brevetted captain by a special
act of Congress.
After leaving the army, William S.
Pennington studied law in the Newark office of Elias Boudinot, in addition to
serving in the New Jersey State Assembly in 1797, 1798, and 1799. He was
elected to the State Council in 1801 and reelected in 1802, the same year he was
admitted to the bar as an attorney. During the next two years he served as
the clerk of Essex County and was elected to fill a vacancy in the New Jersey
Supreme Court, where he remained on the bench until 1813. For the majority
of that time, he was also the Supreme Courts reporter. In 1812,
Pennington was the Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey and the
following year won the gubernatorial election, becoming New Jerseys governor
from 1813-1814. The year after he left office, President James Madison
appointed him a judge of the Federal District Court for New Jersey, a position
that he kept until his death eleven years later.
William S. Pennington married Phoebe
Wheeler (d.1804), the daughter of Rhoda Lyon and Captain James Wheeler
(ca.1740-1777), around 1786. They had ten children together, one of whom,
William Pennington (1796-1862), also became a governor of New Jersey.
After Phoebes death, William S. Pennington married Elizabeth Pierson (d.1840)
on July 13, 1805. He died on September 17, 1826.
Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography.
Pennington Family File, The New Jersey
Historical Society.
William S. Penningtons commission was
donated at the bequest of A. Pennington Whitehead in 1994. His diary was
probably donated by Dr. Samuel Hayes Pennington.
The papers consist of a commission and a
diary of William S. Pennington (1757-1826) from the American Revolution.
The commission is signed by Samuel Huntington, president of the Congress of the
United States, in 1780 and retroactively promotes Pennington to the rank of
second lieutenant in the Second Regiment of Artillery in the United States Army
as of September 12, 1778.
Penningtons diary was written from May
4, 1780 to March 23, 1781 during his time as a second lieutenant in the
army. He describes the daily life of a soldier, writing about marches,
dining with friends, letters received, visits home, and news and hearsay from
the front. The entries track Penningtons movements during this period
but also give insight into the movements of the larger army and major figures in
the Revolutionary War, including General George Washington whom Pennington dines
with. During the course of the diary, Pennington himself marches from near
West Point, New York to and around New Jersey and back again. He also
mentions general problems with which the army is dealing, for example looting
and dueling, and the resulting executions and deaths. More particularly,
he writes of the betrayal of General Benedict Arnold in September of 1780 and
the “mutiny of the Pennsylvania line” at Morristown, their surrender,
and punishment (including the execution of two of their leaders) in January of
1781.
The diary has been transcribed and
published in the Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, Vol.
63 (October 1945), pgs. 199-218 and Vol. 64 (January 1946), pgs. 31-42.
Manuscript Group 331, William Pennington
(1796-1862) Papers
Manuscript Group 675,
Pennington-Satterthwaite
Family Papers
Manuscript Group 1007,
Wheeler Family (Newark, NJ) Papers
Folder |
Title |
Dates |
|
1 |
Commission as second lieutenant in |
1780 |
|
2 |
Diary |
May 4, 1780 – March 23, 1781
|
Processed by Kim Charlton, March 2000 as part of the “Farm to City”
project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records
Commission.
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