Our English Origin

Other Penleys in the Colonies before 1790

Other Penleys in the Colonies

This website is primarily deals with the descendants of William Pinley's orphan son Thomas. Penley family researchers through the years have found numerous references to a wide variety of spellings which could theoretically be related Penleys descending fromhis orphan son, Will Jr., but no positive connection can yet be made within records now available. Pendle, Pingley, Pendry, Pemble, Panley, and Pindall are just a few of the other names studied in search of Will Jr.’s descendants.

Maine and Massachusetts

Some Maine Penleys promote the founder of their line, Joseph Penley, who arrived in the 1770's, during the American Revolution, as the “first Penley in America”. In addition to our William Pinley, documented at his arrival in Maryland in 1638, our current research located a Sampson Penley who arrived Falmouth, Maine, before 1658, and Joseph Penley enlisted in the Continental Army from the same town where Sampson had lived. It appears from his enlistment that that Joseph Penley headed toward Sampson Penley's homestead in Falmouth shortly after his arrival in America.

Sampson Penley was survived by at least three daughters, and a supposed son Sampson, who captained the ship Marygold in 1699. Both Sampson and Joseph Penley appear to be related to Penleys found living in Devon and Cornwall, England. There are other Penleys found later in Massachusetts who may descend from Sampson Penley of Falmouth. Abigail Turner and her sons Benjamin and Samuel Stockbridge of Scituate, Massachusetts on August 1, 1700, requested John Bryant, William Pendy , and Zachariah Damon to value the estate of Benjamin and Samuel. One Thomas Pinly has been located in the list of the Massachusetts Militia at Mendon, October 19, 1675, called out to defend Lancaster, Massachusetts against the Natives in King Phillip's war. This may have been our Orphan Thomas Pinley, as he would have been 25 years old in 1675, but no other found documents place him anywhere except Maryland and Virginia.

Peggy Crane located a William Penly who died childless in Philadelphia in 1737. The Philadelphia Penleys were a most interesting bunch, well connected with people such as Benjamin Franklin. An Edward Penley and Anne Penley were also located in Philadelphia in this era. After much research and great sorrow, it was determined that these Quaker Penleys were not directly related to the 1638 immigrant to Maryland, having immigrated directly to Pennsylvania in the 1720's from Horsley, England, long after the death of the William Pinley in 1650.

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There is a large body of prevailing information concerning a different Pendley family living in Maryland and Virginia during this time frame, commonly referred to as the Mitchell Paper. The specific dates given for births and marriages indicate extensive research, but no sources are cited, and it is not known to be verified by primary or secondary documents. Some of this research erroneously lays claim to Hannah Mountney and the William Pinley who immigrated to Maryland in 1638, and promotes a belief that William the Immigrant married Elizabeth Reed in 1659 and had six children, nine years after the immigrant’s death.

It is entirely possible that another William Pinley immigrated during this era, but the William Pinley who immigrated to Maryland in 1638, who became involved with the Virginians on Kent Island, who married Hannah Boyle Mountney’s daughter, who died in Northampton County in 1650, and who left three orphans for Hannah to raise did not marry Elizabeth Reed nine years after his death. The orphans of William Pinley moved to Lancaster County with their Grandmother, Hannah Mountney.

Likewise, Orphan Will Pinley Jr. (possibly born as early as 1643) could not have married Elizabeth Reed in Maryland in 1659, as he was referred to as an orphan in Lancaster County court records in 1659 and again in 1662, when he was assaulted by Will Crump in the courtroom. The Pendleys who supposedly settled near Alexandria, Virginia, already had two children before Will Jr.’s last appearance in court as an orphan.