DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. John Parker Pennington came into this world in Fannin County, Texas, back when Texas was still its own republic — born in 1840, before statehood, before any of this was settled into what it'd become. And right from that beginning, the man's life had a way of finding the hard edge of history.
As a young man, he made his way out to Arizona Territory, and not just out there, but out there early — part of one of the first families to settle that land. Now that is not a small thing. First families in Arizona Territory were not exactly surrounded by comfort and calm.
Pennington survived several deadly encounters with the region's Native Americans. Survived them. More than once.
The marker doesn't dress that up, and neither will I. Then came the Civil War, and he was there for that too. When it was over, he gathered his family and moved back to Texas — 1867.
The man had seen enough of the frontier West to last several lifetimes, and he came home. He put down roots, and this cemetery is where those roots run deepest. The first recorded burial here was 1872 — his sister, Margaret Dennison, known to the family as Mag.
John Pennington himself, born 1840, died 1904, rests here. So does his first wife, Emily J. McAllister, who died in 1880, and his second wife, Isabelle Purcell, who died in 1916.
And their descendants, laid to rest alongside them across the generations. One man, born at the edge of one republic, who walked through Arizona Territory, through a war, back to Texas — and in the end, the ground here in Williamson County holds the whole long arc of it.
What the marker says
Born in Fannin County, Texas, during the Republic of Texas period, John Parker Pennington (1840-1904), lived as a young man in Arizona Territory. As a member of one of the first families to settle in the territory he survived several deadly encounters with the region's Native Americans. He participated in the Civil War then moved his family to Texas in 1867. The first recorded burial was that of Pennington's sister, Margaret (Mag) Dennison, in 1872. John Pennington, his two wives, Emily J. McAllister (d. 1880) and Isabelle Purcell (d. 1916), and their descendants are interred here. (1995)