Early Life
Dennis Pennington was born in Cumberland County, Virginia just before American Independence on May 18, 1776 to Edward Pennington. He had four brothers and one sister. The Pennington family owned several slaves while they lived in Virginia, but freed them all when they left the state. One of the slaves, "Aunt Fannie", refused to be left behind. She stayed with Penningtons for the rest of her life as a free household servant, & died as one of the several freed slaves living in Corydon.
In the fall of 1773 the Penningtons moved to the frontier in Kentucky. They became friends of Henry Clay shortly after he moved to the territory. In 1799 Pennington supported Clay in his attempt to make Kentucky a "Free State". While Pennington lived in Kentucky, he farmed land east of Louisville and married his wife Elizabeth (English). In 1784 he crossed the Ohio River at Clarksville, Indiana and entered the Northwest Territory for the first time. There Pennington purchased land from George Rogers Clark near present day Lanesville, Indiana. He moved his family there and built a homestead to farm the land starting in 1802. He moved again in 1815 to what is now Central Barren, Indiana, four miles north of Corydon.
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