Skip to content

Pennywell Folsom

Pennywell Folsom headed a household in Lowndes County by 1830. The original census schedule writes the given name in a form indexed as “Pennawell,” with Pennywell supplied as an alternate reading. A 1836 general-militia return also names Pennywell Folsom as a private in the county's 659th District. That return recorded militia eligibility; it was not a roster of men called into active service.

Folsom was killed during the Battle of Brushy Creek on July 15, 1836. A report printed eleven days later named him among the dead. The engagement occurred during the movement of Creek people through south Georgia toward Florida. Later accounts disagree about some details of the fighting, but the contemporary casualty notice provides firm support for Folsom's death.

Folks Huxford later placed Pennywell among settlers who arrived in 1824 or 1825 and treated an 1840 household as his widow's. Neither point has been verified from an original record. Published family lists for Lawrence Folsom do not include Pennywell. The 1938 Folsom genealogy instead identifies him as a son of George Folsom and Edith Penny and as a brother of Elizabeth Folsom, wife of William Folsom. That relationship is secondary-supported rather than proved because no inspected original record names the parents.

This Pennywell must also be kept separate from a younger namesake born about 1844. The evidence establishes the older man as a Lowndes County pioneer and 1836 casualty, but it does not place his home at the later Barney townsite.

Sources

  1. 1830 U.S. census, Lowndes County, Georgia, stamped p. 82, Pennawell/Pennywell Folsom, NARA M19 roll 19; Ancestry collection 8058, record 1850877, image 4409522_00162.
  2. “Suwannee” battle report naming Pennywell Folsom among the killed, Southern Recorder (Milledgeville), July 26, 1836, p. 3: https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn82016415/1836-07-26/ed-1/seq-3/.
  3. Lowndes County, 81st Regiment Georgia Militia, 1836 general-militia return, Pennywell Folsom, private, 659th District, Valdosta State University Archives item 10428/1219: https://vtext.valdosta.edu/handle/10428/1219.
  4. Folks Huxford, The History of Brooks County, Georgia, 1858-1948 (1948), pp. 29-33, 39-40.
  5. Elizabeth Knowles Folsom, Genealogy of the Folsom Family, vol. 2 (1938), pp. 896–897, George Folsom family; identifies Pennewell/Pennywell and Elizabeth as siblings, used as compiled evidence rather than original parentage proof.
  6. William Harden, A History of Savannah and South Georgia, vol. 2 (1913), Ashley Lawson family sketch; used as a conflicting compiled child list for Lawrence.
  7. 1860 U.S. census, Brooks County, Georgia, E. J. and Priscilla J. Folsom household, p. 676, dwelling/family 183, NARA M653 roll 112; Ancestry collection 7667, record 10752896. This record controls the younger namesake.