Jacob Penn
MSA SC 3520-17499
Biography:
Jacob Penn enlisted as a private in the First Maryland Regiment's Second Company, commanded by Captain Patrick Sim, in January 1776. After enlisting, Penn and his company traveled to Annapolis, joining five other companies of the regiment that were stationed there; three additional companies were in Baltimore. Commanded by Colonel William Smallwood, the regiment was the first unit of full-time, professional soldiers raised in Maryland for service in the Continental Army. [1]
In July, the regiment received orders to march to New York, in order to defend the city from an impending British attack. The Marylanders arrived in New York in early August, where they joined with the rest of the Continental Army, commanded by General George Washington. On August 27, 1776, the Americans faced the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island), the first full-scale engagement of the war. The battle was a rout: the British were able to sneak around the American lines, and the outflanked Americans fled in disarray.
During the retreat, the Maryland troops fought their way towards the American fortifications, but were blocked by the swampy Gowanus Creek. Half the regiment, including the Second Company, was able to cross the creek and escape the battle. However, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, this group of soldiers, today called the "Maryland 400," mounted a series of daring charges, which held the British at bay for some time, at the cost of many lives, before being overrun. They took enormous casualties, with some companies losing nearly 80 percent of their men, but their actions delayed the British long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape. In all, the First Maryland lost 256 men, killed or taken prisoner. [2]
Penn survived the battle, and continued to serve with the Marylanders through the rest of the difficult fall and winter of 1776. While the Maryland troops demonstrated their skill and bravery, the Americans were nevertheless pushed out of New York, and put on the run through New Jersey. Not until late that winter did they secure revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton. Around the end of 1776, Penn's enlistment expired, and he did not rejoin the army. Penn returned to Anne Arundel County, Maryland, afterwards. In the summer of 1777, he was part of a militia company assigned to join the Fourth Maryland Regiment, but he obtained a substitute, a man named William Carty, to serve in his stead. [3]
In 1788, Jacob Penn published a notice that he was going to file a declaration of insolvency in the Anne Arundel County Court. There is no indication that he ever did so, however, nor are there any clues about the source of his financial woes, although there was a severe recession in the 1780s. Little is known about Penn's life for the next two decades. He did get married and had four children, and spent time living in Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties. [4]
By 1808, however, Penn's fortunes had worsened, and he petitioned the General Assembly for relief. He sought support because he was "very poor, and far advanced in old age," and "from an entire loss of one of his hands is rendered totally incapable of procuring a support for himself, wife and four children." Penn was awarded $30 per year, to be paid by the Anne Arundel County Levy Court. He received his last payment in 1816. After that time, however, he does not appear in any further records. [5]
Owen Lourie, 2017
Notes:
2. Return of the Maryland troops, 27 September 1776, from Fold3.com; Mark Andrew Tacyn "'To the End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 48-73. For more on the experience of the Marylanders at the Battle of Brooklyn, see "In Their Own Words," on the Maryland State Archives research blog, Finding the Maryland 400.
3. List of Substitutes enlisted by Captain Joseph Burgess for the Fourth Maryland Regiment, 1777, Maryland State Papers, Series A, box 7, no. 84, MdHR 6636-7-84 [MSA S1004-7-8, 1/3/7/28]; Oath of Allegiance, Anne Arundel County, 1778, Maryland State Papers, Red Books 22:25 [MSA S989-37, 1/6/4/25].
4. Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), 20 March 1788; U. S. Federal Census, 1790, Anne Arundel County, Maryland; U. S. Federal Census, 1800, District 4, Montgomery County, Maryland; "An Act for the Relief of Jacob Penn, of Anne Arundel County," Laws of 1808, Ch. 82. Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 192, p. 857.
5. Votes and Proceedings of the House of Delegates, November Session 1808, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 556, p. 68; Act for the Relief of Jacob Penn; Anne Arundel County Levy Court, Levy List, 1811-1828, pps. 6, 15, 27, 38, 50, 64 [MSA C103-1, 1/3/11/20].
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