Complicated Pennington Connections

There are a lot of complicated family lines that I have studied through the years…some have well established family lines that have been documented and stretch back to Europe.  Others are fortunate if they stretch back to the mid 1700’s.  DNA has told us that the Pennington's who came from the Ashe Co., NC area are genetically linked…but once you get back a generation or two in the 1700’s, there hasn’t been any documentation located yet that establishes a clear relationship.  So, having said that, I decided many years ago to concentrate on all of the Pennington's who came through Ashe Co., NC and not just the family that I descend from…you might say I started this because of a tie between my Dollar family and the Pennington family.

I have written before about the two Andrews Penningtons (A Tale of Two Andrews…) and you might say that I am revisiting one of those lines.  Research has told me that if I am looking at a family who lives in the Washington Co., VA area or nearby, I am looking at a descendant of Group 30 and most likely one of Andrew Pennington and Hester Ann Blevins.  Andrew lived to be 71 years of age and Hester was 78 when she passed.  Both were buried in the Laurel Cemetery in Smyth Co., VA.  They had eleven children and while they all lived relatively near their parents…they were scattered around Ashe Co., NC, Johnson Co., TN, Washington Co., VA and Smyth Co., VA.  I found one of these daughters of Andrew and Hester while researching my Dollar family.

Mary Matilda Pennington was born 11 Jul 1842 in Ashe Co., NC and died on 2 Mar 1920 at Little Fall, Ashe Co., NC.  She married Calvin Calhoun Davis on 25 Jul 1861.  Calvin was the son of Jordan Anderson Davis and Cynthia Lynch.  It looks as if Calvin and Mary Matilda Pennington married and then he left to fight in the Civil War.  Of course that might have been when the marriage had a license or bond that was obtained…their oldest child was born on 6 May 1861 in Ashe Co., NC…a few months preceding their marriage license.  Calvin evidently went to the war and ended up a prisoner at Elmira prison…for their next child appears on 19 Dec 1865.  You might say that Mary Matilda Pennington was one of the reasons that I started researching all of the Penningtons in the area.  I kept running into Penningtons that I couldn’t identify and it was frustrating.  Mary Matilda’s son, Ezra Edward Davis had a daughter named Ethel Davis.  (She just died a few years ago at the age of almost 102)  Ethel was married to Chester Lyall, who was the son of Amanda Jane Dollar and William Davis Lyall.  One of my habits is to try and find the parents of a spouse in case the information might prove useful in the future.  This information proved very useful. 

Amanda Dollar was the older sister of my great great grandfather, John Dula Dollar and they were both children of Alexander Monroe Dollar and Elizabeth Pennington.  So, when Amanda Dollar’s son married a Pennington descendant (Ethel Davis), I got curious. I was told by Ethel’s son that his grandparents were Ezra Edward Davis and Sina Miller and that he had heard of a Pennington connection.  So, I tried to take it a bit further.  Ezra was the son of a Tildie Pennington and C. C. Davis.  After more research I discovered that their full names were Mary Matilda Pennington and Calvin Calhoun Davis.  While Mary Matilda was mostly referred to as Matilda or Tildie….that was her full name.  So, her parents were Andrew Pennington and Hester Blevins…so now I started working on that family tree.  Just because I always like to include the parents, I did a little more checking and found out that Sina E. Miller was the daughter of Eli Miller and Allie Hart…I couldn’t help looking further and found out that Sina’s grandmother was a Blevins and when I put her name into my genealogy program it popped out a red flag and asked me if the Bathsheba Blevins was the same one who married Isaac Miller.  I found out that she was…and found yet again another Pennington link.  Bathsheba was the daughter of Elizabeth Pennington and Wells Blevins.  Elizabeth was Andrew Pennington’s sister…and Wells Blevins was Hester’s brother…so now the tree became even more complicated.

Most who have studied the Pennington family have stayed with their own particular line.  Going straight back as far as they could and not looking at the siblings and their families.  It don’t know if it is a sickness of mine…but I have hard time not poking around to see what else I might discover.  So, my research is almost always in a state of flux and I doubt that I will ever have a complete picture of the Penningtons of Ashe Co., NC.  There are too many branches that have yet to be explored.  You might say it all started when I discovered that Amanda Dollar’s son married a granddaughter of a Pennington…and I just had to figure out who it was!

Gage & Gaige

There are five Gage lines that have been recorded.  I don’t know if we will ever know is they are connected or if it will always be a mystery.  The first Gage in my line is that of William Montgomery Gage of Freetown, MA.   William married Hannah Davis in about 1823 and they were the parents of 10 children.  They had nice Quaker names like Remembrance, Sylvester and Joseph.   There has always been a curiosity about the descendants of Joseph Gage, my 6^th great grandfather and William Montgomery Gage’s 4^th son. 

Joseph Gage was born 3 May 1734 in Freetown, Bristol Co., MA and died 23 May 1811 in Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY.  He married Mary Jane Huddleston on 13 Sep 1756 in Tiverton, Newport Co., RI.  Mary Jane Huddleston was born on 14 May 1738 in Dartmouth, Bristol Co., MA and d. 27 Jan 1814 in Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY.  She was the daughter of Isaac Huddleston and Elinor Mortimer.  (She had two sisters who also married Gage brothers.  Mercy married William Montgomery Gage, Jr. and Cloe married Thomas Gage) Joseph and Mary Jane must have left Massachusetts fairly soon after their marriage because their second child is born in Burlington, Otsego Co., NY and they are living in Duanesburg by 1764 when their fourth child was born, which is where they spent the rest of their lives.  Joseph and Mary Jane’s children were:

• Mortimer M. Gaige b. 9 Sep 1757 Dartmouth, Bristol Co., MA d. 18 Dec 1804 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY m1. 9 Sep 1782 Catherine Vail
• Philip Gaige b. 14 Nov 1759 Burlington, Otsego Co., Ny d. 1818 Otsego Co., NY m. Elizabeth
• Benjamin Gaige b. 19 Apr 1762 Nine Partners, Dutchess Co., NY d. 1 Dec 1831  Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY m. abt 1780 Deliverance “Dilla” Hoag
• Moses Gaige b. 11 Jun 1764 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY d. 23 Sep 1830 m1. 24 Feb 1786 Hannah Macomber m2. 4 Dec 1817 Sybil Hoag
• Simeon Gage b. 17 Jan 1767 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY d. 1804 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY m. Feb 1786 Mary Macomber
• Isaag Gaige b. 12 Aug 1769 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY d. 2 Aug 1864 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY m1. 13 Nov 1788 Lydia Soule m2. Abt 1797 Amelia Adams m3. 25 Nov 1818 Anna Bradbury
• William Gage b. 20 Aug 1770 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY d. 18 Jan 1865 Knox, Albany Co., NY m. abt 1790 Ruth Macomber
• David Gage b. 26 Aug 1774 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY d. 16 Jan 1868 Farmington, Ontario Co., NY m. abt 1795 Cornelia Scott
• Joseph Gage b. 3 Mar 1777 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY d. 26 Mar 1858 Silver Lake, Susquehanna Co., PA m1. abt 1795 Elizabeth Briggs m2. Abt 1802 Lydia Thompson
• Mercy Gage b. 19 Aug 1779 Duanesburg, Schenectady Co., NY m. Benjamin Macomber

(All four Macombers were the children of John Macomber and Mary Brownell Davol)

The curiosity for me is this….of these sons of Joseph and Mary Jane – some of them have changed the spelling of their name from Gage to Gaige.  I got most of my Gage information from a man named Rev. Walker Miller Gage who wrote a Gage genealogy that my great grandparents got in the late 1960’s.  He had the theory that these older sons of Joseph Gage were loyalists who changed the name in protest.  The earliest birth date for these Gage sons was 1757 which would have put them fairly young when the Revolutionary War started.  They were a Quaker family which makes me wonder if that might have been a reason they disagreed with the war.  Unfortunately, I have nothing to verify the theory of Rev. Gage…although he probably came the closest to talking to those who knew.  I haven’t seen any of the other Gage lines show this unique spelling either.  So….if you are looking at the Gage surname, try checking out if your relative can be found with the Gaige spelling.  

Edy Pennington Eastrage

Depending on whatever theory that you believe in…Edy Pennington is most likely the oldest child of Levi Pennington and Elizabeth Henson.   I am fairly confident that Levi Pennington and Elizabeth Henson had at least 12 children and possibly as many as 14.  I am descended from one of the youngest daughters, Elizabeth, but I have always been interested in Edy Pennington.

Edy was born about 1815 likely around the Little Laurel region of Ashe Co., NC.  Her parents probably either married the year she was born or just before.  It would have put her mother at the age of 16 and her father at the age of 21.  Edy marries a Nathan Estrage in about 1835.  He was likely a close neighbor.  Nathan was the son of Henry Eastridge and Elizabeth Floyd.  I’ve never spent a lot of time looking at Nathan’s ancestry but I have spent a bit of time trying to figure out if the name is supposed to be Eastrage, Eastridge, or Estrage.  I’m still not sure of the spelling but I have gone with the spelling of Eastrage because that is what I have found in census records.

Edy and Nathan had children right away after the marriage and had at least six children.  According to the estate record of Levi Pennington, we actually have a pretty good rundown of the children.

• Elizabeth was born abt 1836 in Ashe Co., NC and d. bef 1865. She was married to Radford Davidson on 17 Jan 1852 also in Ashe Co., NC.  Elizabeth died before 1865 and her husband died before 1870.  I’ve had limited luck tracing their children any further.  I only have limited information on the children and a death date on one of them. 
• William Harrison was born 2 Jan 1840 in Ashe Co., NC and d. 6 May 1925 Ashe Co., NC.  He was married to either Mary Dishman or Davis.  They had 9 children spent their lives in the area.
• Catherine was born Jun 1842 and d. 8 Nov 1915.  She married Charles A. Warren on 3 May 1869 and they had three children.
• Nancy was born about 1845 in Ashe Co., NC and d. bet 1876-1880.  She was married to John H. Shepherd and had six children. 
• Edia was born about 1848 in Ashe Co., NC and d. Feb 1880.  She was married to Alvin Columbus Lou Allen.  (Alvin’s brother Calvin, was married to Edia’s 1^st cousin, Tishia Pennington)  I have very little on their two daughters, although I suspect on the little bits of information that I do have that the family might have ended up in Johnson Co., TN
• Hiley was born about May 1850 in Ashe Co., NC, married Wiley Elbert Vanover on 18 Aug 1882 in Johnson Co., TN and they are next found in the 1900 IL census with three children.

It is obvious that Edy named at least one of her daughters after her sister Hiley and possible that she named another one after Elizabeth…but I think it more likely that she was named after Nathan’s mother.  Every one of these families is due more research because there is always new information that seems to come to light and sometimes new ways to search.   However, Edy seemed to leave her mark.  She stayed her entire life in Laurel Twp., Ashe Co., NC and sadly preceded both her parents in death.  Her husband never remarried as far as I can tell and stayed in the Laurel Twp., Ashe Co., NC.  Their burial location is unknown but they are probably buried in a family cemetery nearby.