McDonough County Genealogical Society
Riggs Pennington, son of Timothy Pennington and Susannah Riggs, was born in 1787—variously reported as North Carolina, Tennessee, or Kentucky, all states that trace his later migration pattern. In 1815, he married Joanna Catherine Osborne in Barren County, Kentucky; some records suggest she was his cousin. Riggs and Joanna would become two of the first settlers to McDonough County.
By 1819, at age 32, Riggs purchased 160 acres in Wayne County, Illinois, at $2 an acre. Yet the 1820 federal census places him in Franklin County, Illinois. Like many early pioneers, Riggs was less a settler than a pathfinder. He opened ground and moved on.
In the spring of 1826, he brought his family to the northeast quarter of Section 24 in Industry Township in McDonough County, alongside William Carter and members of the Osborne family. He is counted among the first white men to enter McDonough County—but he did not remain. By 1830, the federal census shows him in Knox County, Illinois, where he, Philip Hash, and Charles Hansford (for whom he later named a son) served as the county’s first commissioners. He also served in the Black Hawk War in 1831–1832.
After the founding of the Republic of Texas, Riggs moved again in 1837, this time to Fannin County, Texas. He does not appear in the 1840 census but is listed in 1850 and 1860 in Brenham, Washington County, Texas. He died there in 1869/1870 at about age 83. The 1870 Mortality Schedule records him as a farmer; cause of death, asthma.
Riggs and Joanna Osborne Pennington may have been among the first pioneers in more than one place, but like many early trailblazers, they left the settling to those who followed.
Pioneers of the Past by Julie L. Terstriep, of the McDonough County Genealogical Society, facebook.com/ mcdcgs, www.mcdcgs.com/pioneers-of-the-past/
