Excuse me for not giving more details on John H. Pennington (
Jeremiah H. Pennington), such as a few dates.
John H. Pennington was born in 1848 in
Maine (probably in Houlton, Arooostook County) and grew up there and in New
Brunswick, Canada.
He married, first, about 1867, probably in New
Brunswick, Margaret Jonah. They had at least seven children, including these three who lived to adulthood:
1. Lillian Isabell
Pennington, born in 1868 in New
Brunswick.
2. Frank Frederick
Pennington, born in about 1872 in
Maine.
3. Gertrude Eugenie
Pennington, born in 1876 in Wisconsin.
John H. Pennington married, second, Nancy G. Martin and they had a son:
Calvin Martin
Pennington, born in 1888 in Brownsville,
Texas.
John H. Pennington married, third, Beatriz
Otero in
Bogota, Colombia, in about 1893.
After living for a short time in
Minnesota and
Dakota Territory around 1880, he headed south and moved around a lot in the 1880s and 1890s:
1887: Los
Angeles.
1888: San Francisco.
1889: Brownsville,
Texas.
1891: Philadelphia and New
Orleans.
1892: Colombia, South
America.
1892-1896: South
America.
1893: Arrived in
New York from Venezuela.
1894-1895:
Bogota, Colombia.
1895:
New York City and Bangor,
Maine.
1895:
Rochester and
Buffalo,
New York.
1896:
Rochester,
New York and Bangor,
Maine.
1896: Arrived in New
Orleans from Belize.
1896: Chicago.
Between 1892 and 1909 he traveled frequently between New
Orleans and Belize, Costa Rica and Cuba.
In 1895 he was named president of the newly formed International North and South American Transportation and Express Company, which transported freight.
He was in Colombia in the 1890s and got a contract to build a railroad between
Bogota and the coast. In Fort Worth and
Austin,
Texas, around 1901 and 1903, he was the livestock agent for the Gulf,
Colorado and
Santa Fe Railway Company.
Someone just alerted me that
Pennington Railway Stop in British
Columbia, on the Yukon border, was named after an early investor in the White Pass and Yukon narrow-gauge railroad. Since John H. Pennington was involved in the railroad business in South
America, maybe he was an investor in this railroad in Canada, too. Descendants think he was in the Yukon Territory in the 1920s or 1930s, but maybe it was earlier.
Doing a quick Google search, I see that the White Pass and Yukon
Route was built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush. Even though John H. Pennington was traveling between New
Orleans and Central
America at that time, maybe he was still an investor in the White Pass and Yukon railroad. Anyway, I'll have to find out if he was the
Pennington for whom the
Pennington Railway Stop in British
Columbia, on the Yukon border, was named.
Rick Crume e-mail,
rick@onelibrary.com