1Rev. G. W. Penniman, Robinson Genealogical Society, The Robinsons and Their Kin Folk, pp.38-43 (1902).
"The Penniman Family
All the Pennimans in America appear to be descended from a single pair of emigrants. It is not "three brothers" with us. It is not from several progenitors here and there that our family springs, making it an endless task to hunt them up and distinguish them; but it's from James and Lydia (Eloit) Penniman that we all derive.
. . .
Lydia Eliot was baptized in Nazing, County Essex, England, 1610, daughter of Bennett Eliot, and that is as far back as we can go in determining our Eliot ancestry.
Where James Penniman came from we do not know.
. . .
James Penniman died in 1664, and his widow married Thomas Wight of Medfield.
James and Lydia Eliot Penniman had nine children as indicated on Boston and Braintree records, but undoubtedly there were ten.
1. The eldest was James2, baptized in Boston, 1633, spoken of in his father's will as an educated man. He was a felt-maker and lived in Boston on the road to Roxbury, probably on or near Summer Street, where his son, grandson, and great grandson lived after him, his son being called "surgeon," his grandson "cordwainer," and his great grandson a "physician." This family seems to have had a large estate and to have been very prosperous, but they have died out and entirely disappeared.
2. The next child was a daughter, Lydia2 baptized in Boston 1635, and married Edward2 Adams of Medfield.
3. Next comes a son, John2 baptized 1637, married Hannah, daughter of immigrant Roger Billings, and had seven children, all of whom died young or unmarried.
4. Fourth comes Joseph2 born in Braintree Aug. 1, 1639, married for first wife, who bore all his children, Waiting2 Robinson, daughter of William1 Robinson of Dorchester and sister of Increase2 Robinson who married her husband's sister, Sarah2 Penniman, and settled in Taunton. Probably half the Pennimans now living descend from Deacon Joseph. I will come back them later.
5. The next child was Sarah2 born 1641, who married Increase Robinson, and I will leave others to speak of her and her descendants.
6. The sixth child, whose birth is not on record, was probably Bethiah, who is mentioned in her mother's will (1673) as Bethiah Allen.
7. The seventh child was Hannah, born 1648, who married 1671, John2 Hall, son of emigrant George1 Hall, who was one of the original proprietors of Cohannet, including present Taunton, Berkeley and Raynham, purchased from the Indian Sachem Massasoit in 1639. I suppose there are many Halls and others in Taunton and vicinity descended from our Hannah2 Penniman.
8. The eighth child was Abigail, born 1651, who would seem, from her mother's will 1673, to have married a Cary. She calls her "Abigail Carie." But Braintree Records (p. 7190 give "Samuel Neale and Abigail Penniman married the 2nd mo. 18th, '78 by Captain Mason." I cannot account for this apparent discrepancy.
9. The ninth child was Mary2 born 1653, who married Samuel Paine of Braintree.
10. The tenth and youngest child was Samuel2 born 1655, married Elizabeth Parmenter, and probably had ten children, but only three sons who had families. These were Nathan3, Joseph3 and James3, and they all left Braintree, the two elder brothers, Nathan3 and Joseph3, going to Netmocke or Mendon, for which plantation their grandfather, the immigrant James1 Penniman, had been one of the petitioners, and their uncle Joseph2 one of the commissioners to settle it, though neither of them had removed there.
The youngest brother James3 went to Medfield. . . .".2Nelson Osgood Rhoades, Ancestral Lineage of Josiah Harmar Penniman and James Hosmer Penniman, Whose Immigrant Ancestor was James Penniman . . ., pp. 379-380 (1920).
URL = http://www.archive.org/stream/ancestrallineage00rhoa/ancestrallineage00rhoa_djvu.txt.
"Lineage
James Penniman, the emigrant ancestor of the Penniman family in America, was one of the settlers of the town of Braintree, Massachusetts, having gone there from Boston where he at first lived. He came over in the ship Lion in 1631 with his wife Lydia Eliot (sister of John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians), and having as fellow passengers, John Winthrop, Jr. (son of the Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and himself first Governor of Connecticut), John Eliot and his brother Jacob Eliot. The Eliots came from Naseing, Essex, while the seat of the Penniman family was probably in Yorkshire, where the English Pennyman family still live at Marske, in Ormesby Hall (see Pennyman Records). The connection between the English and the American families has never been satisfactorily established. The statement sometimes made that James, the emigrant was a brother of Sir Wilham Pennyman, the distinguished Royalist is not substantiated by any known record, though it is not impossible that it may be true. As James was a Puritan it has been suggested that his Royalist relations kept no record of him or that the records were destroyed. (For James, the Emigrant, see Town Records of Braintree, Massachusetts. For Lydia, his wife, see Town Records of Medfield, Massachusetts where her second marriage as widow of James, is mentioned and she is stated to have been the sister of John Eliot, the Apostle. For Penniman see the Pennyman Records, York 1904, Appendix N, American Pennimans.)
THE PENNIMAN FAMILY OF BRAINTREE
James Penniman, B. in England, came in the Lion, 1631, with John Winthrop, Jr.; admitted as Freeman 6th March, 1631-1632; of Boston at first; of Braintree, 1639; wife, Lydia Eliot; he d. 26th December, 1664. Lydia m. (secondly) 7th December, 1665, Thomas Wright, of Medfield (Medfield Records). James Penniman's will is dated 18th December, 1664; proved 31st January, 1664-1665; recorded Suff. Prob., 1 : 443. Mentions his oldest son James, son Joseph, youngest son Samuel. He says, "God hath blessed me with many children." His son James "had been educated into such a way of living, as he is having already had a portion." Most of the children, he says, were young. Inventory, 31st January, 1664-1665, including dwelling house, £45; barn and stable, old house and orchard, £70; thirty acres of land near the Mill-Pond, £70; fifteen acres near Knight's Neck, (Quincy), £30; eighteen acres "nigh Weymouth ffery," £55, etc. Total, £505, 3s. Sworn to in court by Lydia Penniman, widow of James. (Suff. Prob., 4: 207.)
I. James, bapt. 26th March, 1633; m. l0th May, 1659, Mary Cross.
II. Lydia, bapt. 22d February, 1634-1635.
III. John, bapt. 15th January, 1636-1637; m. 24th February, 1664-1665, Hannah Billings.
IV. Joseph, b. 1st August, 1639; m. (firstly) Waiting Robinson; m. (secondly) widow Sarah (Bass) Stone.
V. Sarai (Sarah), b. 6th May, 1641.
VI. Samuel, b. 14th November, 1645; of whom later.
VII. Hannah, b. 26th May, 1648.
VIII. Abigail, b. 27th December, 1651; m. 18th April, 1678, Samuel Neale, son of Henry Neale.
IX. Mary, b. 29th September, 1653; m. 4th April, 1678, Samuel Paine."3Clifford L. Stott, The English Origin of James1 Penniman of Boston and Braintree, Massachusetts, The American Genealogist, Vol. 71, pp. 16-17 (Jan1996).
"Children of James1 and Lydia (Eliot) Penniman:
i JAMES2 PENNIMAN, bp. Boston, 16 1m [March],18 d. Boston, bef. 13 Nov. 1679 when administration was granted on his estate.19 He m. Boston, 10 May 1659, MARY CROSS.20.
ii LYDIA PENNIMAN, bp. Boston, 22 12m [Feb.] 1634[/5],21 d. Medfield, Mass., 3 March 1675/76.22 She m. ca. 1652, EDWARD2 ADAMS of Medfield, son of Henry1 and Edith (Squire) Adams. She is called "Lydia Addams" in the will of her mother.
. . .".4Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Vols. I-III , p. 1430 (1995).
"COMMENTS
. . .
In 1977 Benjamin Parker Richardson Jr. entered a caveat against the identification of Edward Adams as the husband of Lydia Penniman [TAG 53:37-38], since the will of her father does not name her at all and the will of her mother merely calls her Lydia Adams without naming her husband, and an alternate claim that the wife of Edward Adams was a Lydia Rockwood or Rockett had been made by Abner Morse. We do know tfrom the mother's will that Lydia did marry an Adams, and a search or Torrey's New England Marriages Prior to 1700 reveals no other Adams this early with wife Lydia. The only evidence in favor of the Rockwood identification is the choice by two of the children of Nicholas Rockwood of Edward Adams as their guardian. This could happen for other reasons than an Adams-Rockwood marriage, and so Edward Adams is retained as the husband of Lydia Penniman.".