My Genealogy Hound

W. C. Penn was born in Rutherford County, Tenn., July 24, 1828, being the oldest son of a family of four boys and four girls born to Josiah and Ruth (Broughton) Penn, natives, respectively, of Virginia and South Carolina. The father was a farmer and came to Smith County, Tenn., in boyhood and later located in Rutherford County, where he married about the year 1824. In 1834 he moved to near Humboldt, Gibson County. Here he died in 1855, well respected. He was a Whig and a man of pious convictions. His wife was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and died in 1883. W. C. Penn was raised a farmer, securing a meagre education, and in his fifteenth year began clerking for B. Elder, Bro. & Co., at Trenton, where he remained seven or eight years. He worked at Memphis and Jackson, and in 1861 enlisted in the Sixth (Confederate) Tennessee Regiment, and was honored with a captain’s commission. After the battle of Shiloh he entered the cavalry service to do scout duty. He participated at Hatchie River, where he received four gun-shot and four sabre wounds and was captured by the enemy. He was paroled and confined in Northern prisons and was exchanged in April, 1863, and during the rest of the war was with Gen. Forrest. He fought at Brice Cross Roads, Athens, Pulaski and elsewhere, and in April, 1865, left the service and began clerking in Humboldt, continuing two years. He then served a Cincinnati wholesale house seven years, and in 1876 opened his dry goods store at Humboldt, and has thus continued since. In 1885 he was appointed postmaster at Humboldt. In October, 1862, he married Miss Texie Boyce, who died one month later. In August, 1872, he married Miss Olivia Jackson, of Ripley, who has borne four children: Claude (deceased), Olivia, Myra and William. His second wife having died, he married his present wife, Miss E. E. Williams, in December, 1883, who has borne her husband one child, a daughter, named Cora Pearl. Mr. Penn is one of the leading citizens of the county.