Muhlenberg County Kentucky
Local History P
Pennington's Farewell
“…from among the many and varied acts of his life, a pretty fair idea may be formed of the true character of Edward Alonzo Pennington. His tact, ingenuity, and utter disregard for truth and honesty, cannot fail to arrest the attention of the reader, at the same time that he is prepared to believe this man capable of any crime the accomplishment of his ends might suggest. And though his cowardice was such that he would scarcely undertake, singled handed and alone, to shed the blood of his fellow man, yet he would always have around him, and obedient to his will, those who dare, for pay or favor, do such a thing. His manners were artful and insinuating, and he could assume at will a gentle, kind and affectionate bearing, well calculated to deceive the unsuspicious and confiding man. In fine, he possessed all the qualities and qualifications of a leading spirit among the depraved, whom he could well guide and govern by his counsels and judgment, and needed only a fearless spirit to have fitted him to lead in deeds of bold and reckless daring. With sufficient personal courage he would have made a bold and able brigand chief, compared even with the far famed robbers of the Alps, or the rougher bands that once infested the mountains of Scotland.”
Source: “The Life, Flight, Capture, Trial and Execution of Edward Alonzo Pennington, The Murderer of Simon Davis,” Pembroke Review, 1898.
Legends originate, grow and persist. A small incident or unusual occurrence that offers a grain of credulity to a story is adequate to begin a tale that increases in size as time goes by. The legend of Edward Alonzo Pennington (1811-1846) is that as his hanging in Hopkinsville on May 1, 1846, for the murder of Simon Davis proceeded, the rope broke on the first fall. During the interlude while the sheriff prepared another rope, Pennington sat on his coffin and whiled the time away by playing a tune, “Pennington's Farewell”, on the violin. The second fall killed him. What otherwise would have been a non-eventful punishment for what Charles M. Meacham, A History of Christian County from Oxcart to Airplane (Nashville, 1930), calls “a very ordinary crime” has become a legend. The small incident, the unusual occurrence was present: the breaking of the rope that was thrown over the “limb of a post Oak tree near the city”. That Pennington was a “country fiddler” adds further credence to the story. In spite of evidence to the contrary, the legend persists as it adds dignity to the departure of a human life in such an ignominious manner.
James Weir, Lonz Powers or The Regulators: A Romance of Kentucky (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1850), perpetuates the story when he suggests in his preface the close connection of Lonz “with the life and adventures of Edward Alonzo Pennington”. Although the novel is a very complicated, detailed story of high romance, names of people and places are only thinly veiled. Beneath the superficialities of the story, Weir, an attorney, expresses his point of view - premature for the society of the 1850's - on Lonz' punishment:
On the day set apart for the execution of Lonz, the sun arose bright, warm, and beautiful as e'er seen in the merry month of May. …Such was the appearance of the morning ushering in the day of Lonz's execution. And while all nature was thus preparing and making ready for the near year and new life, he alone was preparing for death, and felt not the mysterious and brightening influence of sunshine and spring. Without the walls of his prison, all was life, and joy, and gaiety; but within his narrow cell, and within his heart, all was darkness, gloom, and death. Death is a gloomy subject to all men; but to die, and travel along the shadowy path, once to be pursued by all, but over which none can return, is most sad and terrible. Under the law of England, the criminal, after sentence, is only allowed a day of respite between conviction and death; but with us the period has been extended to about thirty days. The English code was though inhuman, and we, for the sake of humanity, have extended the day of death. We doubt very much the propriety of this change, if made upon the score of humanity; for, if we must die, who would not rather perish at once, than drag out thirty long days of horror and expectation? To die is sufficiently frightful, without always having it looming constantly before our terrified imagination. To die by the gradual hand of disease, with our friends around us, and with the continual hope of a change for the better, to cheer and sustain us, is as much as the weak mind of man can support. But to die, like the condemned fatalist, day by day, for thirty long days, counting every rising and setting sun, noting every hour and moment of weary time, and having no hope, and knowing that the day of our death was as fixed and certain as life itself, is, and must have been to him, most horrible and shocking.
Who can conceive a more frightful situation, than to be confined in a dark and silent dungeon, and left alone to your thoughts, under the full knowledge that your death was decreed on a certain day, and that they who were to deprive you of life, were but the officers of an unfeeling and lifeless law, and although pitying, could not have mercy, and although, destroying, believed they were doing right. It is strange that these long days of mental horror, these fierce throes of a departing soul, do not more frequently overthrow the mind, and send forth the prisoner to the gibbet, a mere babbling, unmeaning idiot.
Of the novel, Lonz Powers, Meacham says, “It was of some historical interest, but of little value, since the real facts were colored and distorted to conform to the ideas of an amateur novelist.” Otto A. Rothert, A History of Muhlenberg County (Louisville, 1924), believes interest was rather great and suggests that the popularity of the book called for a second printing which Weir did not provide because of threats against his life. The implication is that the story of Lonz was too uncomfortingly accurate for a number of questionable individuals in the area.
That Lonz or Pennington died bravely is unquestioned. Whether the rope broke on the first attempt to hang him or whether he played the violin is in doubt. For example, another version of the story has Lonz reciting a poem, “Pennington's Lament”:
Oh, dreadful, dark and dismal day,
How have my joys all passed away!
My sun's gone down, my days are done,
My race on earth has now been run.
However, the only farewell Pennington made was “a denial of his guilt”. This conforms to the story in Lonz Powers as Weir has Lonz saying, “I have nothing to confess, and I am innocent of this crime”. Weir vividly details the hanging:
…he had turned away, and at the request of the executioner, busied himself with making bare his throat for the rope. A slight shudder passed over his person as the cord touched his naked neck, but beyond this, he showed no signs of trepidation or feeling of any kind.
He was again alone upon the platform - a moment of breathless silence, followed by a quick, heavy blow of the sheriff upon a secret bolt, and he stood no longer upon plane, or earth, or solid rock, but hung a dangling, struggling, horrible spectacle in the air…
There is no mention of the rope breaking or of the violin playing; surely the romanticist Weir would not have missed that event had it happened.
The essential question regarding Edward Alonzo Pennington is whether or not justice was served in the hanging of May 1, 1846.
The details of the Pennington case are as follows:
- For a period of time after 1820 a number of undesirable citizens poured into southern Muhlenberg, northern Todd, and northern Christian counties. They engaged in horse stealing, counterfeiting money, barn burning, and the stealing of slaves for sale in the South. Pennington was increasingly associated with these deeds as he had a race track, dealt in horses, and traveled to southern Illinois to obatin horses which he later sold in the South. People began to associate his movements with the appearance of counterfeit money - after he returned from Illinois - and the disappearance of slaves - when he went south to sell horses. It should be noted that Pennington was the son of a long-time Justice of the Peace and since 1829 High Sheriff of Christian County.
- Mrs. Simon Davis, one of three orphans, who had inherited property from a Baptist minister, died about April 25, 1845, with no children to the marriage. The law required that the property revert to the other two orphans, and her husband, Simon Davis, would receive nothing. Pennington advised Davis to dispose of the chattel property and to sell the farm to him. He also advised Davis to leave the country to avoid a lawsuit which would surely follow.
- Later Pennington told several versions of the whereabouts of Davis; suspicion in the neighborhood mounted about his disappearance.
- On July 12, Colonel James Robinson organized the Regulators (or Safety Society) in a meeting at Antioch with the purpose “to aid and co-operate with the law, by arresting and delivering over to the constituted powers, such offenders as would have escaped altogether.”
- Benjamin F. Cisney (also referred to as Cessna), a man believed to have been a member of Pennington's gang, led the Regulators to a cave or “sink-hole” in which they found the body of Davis. Cisney told the Regulators that Pennington killed Davis and threw his body in the hole.
- The Regulators went to Pennington's house but he was not home for he had gone to Paducah; the men who went after him missed hom on the trail. Pennington learned that the Regulators were after him, and after he returned to his home he saddled a fresh mount, “Walnut Cracker,” and left the country.
- Dr. Reece Bowland, with the assistance of his brothers in Texas, captured Pennington and brough him back to Kentucky to stand trial for the murder of Davis.
- On July 26, 1845, the Christian county Grand Jury indicted Pennington and Cisney for the murder of Davis.
- On April 6, 1846, the Christian County court sentenced himto death by hanging.
- On May 1, the Sheriff executed the sentence.
Colonel James F. Buckner, Pennington's defense attorney, discussed the case with a reporter in an interview that became the context for the following Lousville Courier Journal story on page 9, January 13, 1884: “Lonz Pennington The Bold Bandit Trader of Southerwestern Kentucky Who Furnished the Plot for a Blood-Curdling Novel and Pulled Hemp At Hopkinsville in 1846.” Buckner described how Pennington employed him for his defense in the trial and how the “mad crowd” threatened him even before he agreed to represent Pennington. Buckner justifies his actions: “I told them that any criminal was entitled to a trial and if Pennington did not employ counsel the court would appoint some one to defend him, and that I was not going to ask the public permission to defend a man in a Court of Justice.” These brave words quelled the mood of the crowd and the Regulator leader, Robinson, agreed “to let the law take its course” but warned that the Regulators would administer justice if the court did not. According to the interview, Buckner was convinced that Pennington did not kill Davis but had either Cisney or Sheffield, another gang member, do it. Buckner asked for a continuance but the court denied it.
Several people have praised Buckner for his role in risking his life, the security of his family, and his political career by defending the publicly-convicted Pennington. The interview in 1884 is the source for William Henry Perrin, History of Christian county (Chicago and Louisville, 1884) and other historians. Meacham questions a number of details in the interview as being “doubtless from the treacherous memory of a man advanced in age.” However the details may vary, Buckner's interview yields a greater harvest in his comments as to whether justice was served on May 1, 1846;
Of course there was no defense to be made, and the jury were not long in deciding to inflict the death penalty, and in May, 1846, Edward Alonzo Pennington…was hung before the largest gathering of people ever seen in Southerwestern Kentucky…
Additional Reading
A lack of synthesis of the sources is the basis for the varying interpretations of the Edward Alonzo Pennington story. William Henry Perrin, History of Christian County (Chicago and Louisville, 1884) is based on the Louisville Courier Journal interview with Colonel James F. Buckner, “Lonz Penniington, The Bold Bandit Trader of Southerwestern Kentucky Who Furnished the Plot for a Blood-Curdling Novel and Pulled Hemp at Hopkinsville in 1846,” (January 13, 1884). For a no-nonsense interpretation, see Charles Mayfield Meacham, A History of Christian County from Oxcart to Airplace (Nashville, 1930), who believes Buckner recalled the events with errors and mistakes; Meacham relies heavily on a pamphlet that was published in the Hopkinsville Gazette in 1846 and contends that Pennington's punishment was just for a “very ordinary crime.” A skeptical account, Otto A. Rothert, A History of Muhlenberg County (Louisville, 1913), suggests the importance of the novel by James Weir, Lonz Powers or the Regulators: A Romance of Kentucky (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1850), and questions the violin playing and song “Pennington's Farewell.”
A more recent interpretation is Mike Herndon, “String Along,” Hopkinsville New Era (March 1, 1972), who states that there was not been another case in the county where the alleged criminal was killed “on more circumstantial evidence.” Following closely after this article is an unpublished student research paper presented in a history class at Hopkinsville Community College, Mary C. East, “Was the Dust of Truth Swept Under a Carpet of Circumstantial Evidence?” (April 17, 1972), that answers this question affirmatively and asks other questions that involve the right of the accused to a fair trial. Each notes that the jury's decision was based on “nothing more than circumstantial evidence.” The sources for this account are Perrin, the Louisville Courier Journal interview, and Herndon.
The novelized account and fascinating description of the Pennington legend is James Weir, Lonz Powers or The Regulators: A Romance of Kentucky (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1850), a rare book that offers much of interest in local history.
The indispensable source is “The Life, Flight, Capture, Trial and Execution of Edward Alonzo Pennington, the Murderer of Simon Davis,” Pembroke Review, 1898. The Hopkinsville Gazette originally published this account in book form in 1846. On April 18, 1921, Clarence B. Brewer of Fairview presented a copy of the Pembroke Review reprint to the Kentucky Historical Society.
Source: Gooch, J.T. “Pennington's Farewell.” Pennyrile: history, stories, legends. Madisonville, KY: Madisonville Community College, 1982 pp. 93-98, 104.
Presented with the kind permission of J.T. Gooch
Updated July 14, 2022.