John Penn, North Carolina

1741-1788

Representing North Carolina at the Continental Congress

John Penn was born in Caroline County, Virginia, to a family of means. His father died when he was eighteen years old, and though he had received only a rudimentary education at a country school, he had access to the library of his relative Edmund Pendleton. He was licensed to practice law in the state of Virginia at age twenty-two. In 1774 he moved to Granville County, North Carolina, where he established a law practice and soon became a gentleman member of the political community. He was elected to attend the provincial Congress in 1775 and elected to the Continental Congress that same year. He served there until 1777, participating in committee work. He was again elected in 1779, appointed to the Board of War, where he served until 1780. He declined a judgeship in his native state around that time, due to failing health. In retirement he engaged in his law practice. He died at the age of 48.

From: US History.org

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Like fellow signers Joseph Hewes and William Hooper, John Penn adopted North Carolina as his home. Except for a 5-year stint in the Continental Congress and a brief career in State service, he passed the years peacefully as a country lawyer far from the clamor of the public forum.

Penn was born in 1740 or 1741 in Caroline County, Va. His father was a well-to-do farmer, and his mother the daughter of a prominent county judge. Despite the family's social position, Penn received only a few years of formal schooling. At the age of 18, when his father died, he inherited a sizable estate. But he was dissatisfied with the prospects it offered, and decided to continue his education. Encouraged by a relative, Edmund Pendleton, a well-known lawyer who made available his personal library, Penn studied law on his own and within 3 years gained admittance to the bar. Soon thereafter he married; he and his wife reared three children.

In 1774, at the end of more than a decade of successful law practice in Virginia, Penn journeyed to Granville County, N.C., and made his home near Stovall. The next year, he was elected to the provincial assembly and only a few weeks later to the Continental Congress (1775-80). In 1777, upon the retirement of Hewes and Hooper, he inherited the leadership of his State's delegation. He was one of the 16 signers of the Declaration who also signed the Articles of Confederation.

Unobtrusive and unassuming but remarkably efficient, likeable, and discreet, Penn quickly won the respect of his congressional colleagues. He rarely disputed with others, but when he did his good humor and peaceful manner saved the day. On one occasion, he feuded with President of Congress Henry Laurens of South Carolina over a personal matter. He accepted Laurens' challenge to a duel, but en route to the proposed site convinced Laurens that they should bury their differences and drop the matter.

Late in 1780 the Governor of North Carolina recalled Penn from Congress to sit on the emergency Board of War, created by the legislature in September to share with the Governor responsibility for military affairs. The three-man board, of which Penn became the leading member, in effect soon assumed control of all military matters. The Governor and military officials, resenting the infringement upon their prerogatives and their loss of authority, persuaded the legislature to abolish the board in January 1781.

His health declining, the following July Penn declined an appointment to the Governor's Council. With the exception of a short tour in 1784 as State tax receiver for the Confederation, he apparently devoted his last years to his law practice. In 1788, only in his late forties, he died at his home near Stovall. Originally buried in the family graveyard adjacent to his home, his remains now rest in Guilford Courthouse National Military Park near Greensboro.

From: National Park Service