Riggs Pennington #6
Riggs Pennington was born in 1787, most likely in North Carolina—though Tennessee and
Kentucky both make their claim, which fits the restless pattern of his life. He was the son of
Timothy Pennington and Susannah Riggs, and if there was ever a man shaped by westward
movement, it was Riggs.
In 1815, while in Barren County, Kentucky, he married Joanna Catherine Osborne—possibly
his cousin, as families often intertwined on the frontier. Together they began a life that
would be marked not by settling down, but by pushing forward.
Riggs and Joanna would have twelve children, and it sometimes seems their children’s
birthplaces mark a trail across the map. Their daughter Matilda, later Matilda Dupuy, was
born in 1817—records place her in Kentucky, Indiana, or Illinois. Another daughter, Mary
Eliza Jane, was born in Illinois in September 1818. By 1819, Riggs, just thirty-two years old,
purchased 160 acres in Wayne County, Illinois, at two dollars an acre. That same year
Joanna gave birth to their son Elijah.
The 1820 census places the family in Franklin County, Illinois, where sons Elihu and
William may have been born. But Riggs was not the sort of man to stay long in one place.
Like many early pioneers, he opened ground, made improvements, and then looked toward
the next horizon.
In the spring of 1826, he brought his growing family north into what was then raw country—
McDonough County, Illinois. They settled on the northeast quarter of Section 24 in Industry
Township, alongside William Carter and members of the Osborne clan. That February, their
son Elisha L. Pennington was born, making the family among the very first white settlers to
enter the county. Still, true to form, they did not remain.
By 1830, Riggs and Joanna had moved again, this time to Knox County, Illinois. There, Riggs
helped organize the young county, serving as one of its first commissioners along with
Philip Hash and Charles Hansford—so respected a man that Riggs later named a son for
him. When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1831–1832, Riggs answered the call to serve,
alongside his son Stephen. Another son, Asa, was born in Knox County in 1834.
The Pennington household was a large one. In addition to the children already mentioned
were Julia, Hansford, Lydia (who later married Whitaker), and John Wesley, among others.
Their family story reads like a roll call of frontier Illinois.
Then came Texas.
After the Republic of Texas was established, Riggs once again felt the pull of new
opportunity. In 1837, he moved his family south to Fannin County, Texas. By 1850 and 1860,
the family was firmly planted in Brenham, Washington County. At last, it seems, Riggs had
found a place to stay. His descendants would become respected citizens there—authors,
attorneys, and community leaders.
Riggs Pennington died in Brenham in 1869 or 1870 at about eighty-three years of age. The
1870 Mortality Schedule lists him simply as a farmer. Cause of death: asthma. After a
lifetime spent carving homes from the frontier and following the edge of settlement
westward, it was a quiet ending for a man who had rarely stood still.
