by John Wilson
posted September 17, 2006
Henry Penick was a pioneer settler at Long Savannah, arriving from North Carolina prior to the Indian removal. However, little is known of his origins or where the family later scattered.
The Penicks were in Virginia at an early date. Edward Penick first appeared in the colonial records when his son, Edward, was baptized on Aug. 15, 1686, at St. Peter's Parish of New Kent County. His wife was Elizabeth. Another son, William, was baptized in 1694 in the same parish. In the rent roll of New Kent County in 1704, Edward had 200 acres. Edward Jr. was in the section of New Kent County taken off into Hanover County. His wife was Esther. Their children included George, John, Joseph. In addition, Esther was pregnant at the time Edward Jr. died about 1735. William was in Amelia County, Va., when he died about 1750. He left a wife, Judith, and children Jerusha, Jeremiah, Edward, William, Charles, Judith and Elizabeth.
Henry Penick obtained four land grants in 1842, paying one cent an acre. One grant was for 80 acres and the other three for 40 acres each. His children included Joseph, Leonidas, Elizabeth, Susan, John, William H. and Cornelia A. The first wife of Henry Penick apparently died, and his second wife, Louisa, was 21 years younger than he was. She was born in Virginia about 1820. At the time of the 1850 census, Joseph Penick and his wife, Jane, who was a North Carolina native, were living at Long Savannah near his father, Henry, and the Mongers and Shirleys. Henry was listed as a farmer in most censuses, but his occupation in 1870 was given as chair and wheel maker.
When the Civil War erupted, Henry remained at Long Savannah though it was a community where neighbors bitterly took up opposite positions and “guerrillas” roved the countryside burning and maiming. Thomas Shirley was of the Confederate persuasion, and he finally had to flee for his safety south to Georgia. His wife and daughter, Adaline, scurried to the Penick house the Sunday after the battle of Chickamauga though some of the Penicks were on the Union side. The Shirley females stayed most nights with the Penicks for eight or nine weeks, finally going to Georgia themselves in January 1864.
John Penick, son of Henry, married before the war. He was a farm laborer living with his wife, Malinda, and their daughter, Sarah. However, he enlisted with the Union's Co. G of the Fifth Tennessee Infantry at Pine Knot, Tenn., on May 21, 1862. He was 26. John was reported either missing from duty or captured at the end of October 1863. It was later found he had been taken by the Confederates at Rock Creek at Philadelphia, Tenn. He was in a hospital at Richmond, Va., in January 1864. Then it was his great misfortune to be transferred on March 12 to the dreaded prison camp at Andersonville, Ga., where so many perished. John Penick died at Andersonville on May 16, 1864, of “intermittent fever and chronic diarrhea.” The federal authorities in 1877 said they still had not concluded whether John Penick had gone AWOL or been captured in the line of duty so the official designation was put down as “considered to have been captured in the line of duty.” Henry and Louisa Penick stayed on at Long Savannah. Emeline Little, who was apparently a relative, lived with them a number of years before and after the war. William H. Penick, who was born about 1851 and was too young to fight in the war, married Elizabeth Walker in 1868. They soon had a daughter, Sarah E. But by 1880, the Penicks had disappeared from this area.
Gail Penick resides here now, but she is not a descendant of Henry. She is in the line of Edward of New Kent County and is the daughter of Frank Penick, who was born at Decatur, Ala., in 1902 and is the son of another Frank Penick.
Lyman W. Priest, a retired Foreign Service officer of Charlottesville, Va., wrote a book on the Penicks.
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