Notes for John Wesley Penn: The son, John W., who came to Indian Spring with him got that land and that spring and became a cowman in a cow country. While gathering cattle in Collin County, John W. met Lucinda Moore. They had grown up within six miles of one another but had never met until they came to Texas. They were married, and lived the rest of their lives on the "Hill." John W., died June 23, 1888, from a rattlesnake bite. His wife lived on the home place with her son, Andy, until her death in 1928, age 81.....
http://www.smu.edu/~anthrop/JPLhis.html Much of this information is the result of the contributions of many individuals who participated in the Joe Pool Lake Archaeological Project between 1977 and 1986. It reflects the work of staff members, field assistants, and consultants. Please go to the above web site for the complete brochure.
Figure 4. Schematic of Penn Farmstead in Dallas County. Major structures and outbuildings date from the late 1850s up to the 1920s.
The vegetation and landscape today is considerably different than it was when the earliest pioneers first came to the Mountain Creek region. As one drives through the Joe Pool Lake area today, one usually notices the thick growth of mesquite trees and other scrub brush choking once open farmlands. Stories told by some local senior residents concerning these changes seemed more like fiction than fact, until they were verified by early surveyors' records housed in the General Land Office in Austin. Lovell Penn recalled the story his Uncle Andy (1876-1964) used to tell him about the old days. Andy Penn remembered the days when he could "get on a horse and ride from his homeplace [site 41DL192] clear to Fort Worth, just cut across the country. It was all open prairie...the grass was way up there that high, no mesquite trees or anything but grass."
Occasionally, one finds an older farmstead complete with many of its traditional outbuildings still intact like the John Wesley Penn farmstead in the Joe Pool Lake area (Figure 4). Only then can one really visualize and fully understand the degree of social and technological change that separates the families of today from those of only two or three generations ago. The Penn farmstead may one day be restored as an early twentieth century working farm museum, complete with a staff performing day-to-day chores in period dress and using authentic tools and animal labor. If restored, the Penn " working period farm " will rank among the most intact historical parks in North Central Texas. It will serve as a tribute to rural Texan farmers and will be among the most complete nineteenth century farmsteads in the state (3). The archaeological investigations conducted on the Penn farmstead as a part of the Joe Pool Lake CRM studies have provided important information on the full archaeological potential of this property, and they have underscored the value of preserving the this farm.
Figure 6. The yard around the oldest Penn farmhouse illustrates the kinds of information recoverable through archaeology. Computer generated maps show the distributions of two kinds of pottery fragments. Ironstone was used for table settings while stoneware was generally used for food preparation (churns) and storage (crocks, jugs).
The Penn Farm (41DL192), for example, contains log and hewn timber frame dwellings and outbuildings that are representative of the types of buildings generally found in North Central Texas. The major barn on this site was built in the late 1850s from over 80 red cedar trees cut over a two year time span. The structure is a horizontal log double crib barn capable of storing grain and sheltering animals. A frame granary (Figure 8) was also built at the same time using red cedar trees from the same forest stand. The earliest Penn dwelling (Figure 9), a modest hewn timber frame house built in 1859, was constructed of trees that had been cut from a different forest than the barns. Tree-rings indicate that a second granary was cut from a floodplain oak forest in April 1874, probably the product of a local sawmill. The main Penn house, built in 1876, was constructed from large pine timbers cut from East Texas forests and shipped by railroad. During the twentieth century, all lumber used in construction was commercial pine lumber purchased from local lumberyards.
The old Penn farmhouse (41DL192) and the Lloyd house (41TR39), both still standing today, are physical evidence that sawn lumber was used by some of the middle class before 1860. In our investigations around the greater Mountain Creek area, we identified several other early houses constructed of sawn lumber and dating between 1849 and 1860. These examples have demonstrated that many of the initial homes and farm buildings were constructed of hewn or sawn wood using mortises and tenons to join wall posts and sills together. The clapboard siding used on them was frequently brought in by wagon from mill operations in East Texas. By using tree-rings and the science of dendrochronology, we have determined the precise year that many trees were cut to construct a building, verifying the coexistence of sawn and hewn buildings.
Figure 17. The J.W. Penn root cellar was constructed in the late nineteenth century. The cellar had a vaulted conical, brick ceiling. The Penn family immigrated to Texas in the 1850s from Sangamon County, Illinois.
The John Wesley Penn cellar, constructed in about 1879, was also an impressive subterranean structure with a conical handmade brick roof (Figure 17). Both Anderson and Penn immigrated to Texas from Sangamon County, Illinois, and both constructed major brick cellars for safety and storage.
Archaeological investigations in the Joe Pool Lake area have involved both conservation and rescue archaeology. The extensive architectural and archaeological deposits at the John Wesley Penn farmstead, for example, were investigated and documented. Similar conservation oriented investigations were conducted at five other historic sites located on major lake shore parks.
Federal Census Index Federal Population Schedule TX 1860 Year Surname Given Name (s) County State Township
1860 PENN JOHN W Dallas County TX Cedar Hill
More About John Wesley Penn: Burial: Unknown, Little Bethel Cemetary , Duncanville, Texas.
Children of John Wesley Penn and Lucinda Moore are:
John Wesley Penn (b. June 19, 1833, d. June 23, 1888)
Notes for John Wesley Penn: