Biography of Ralston H. Penniman
Ralston H. Penniman, one of Plainfield’s most able farmers and prominent residents, was born in this town, which is in the north-western part of Sullivan County, January 9, 1819, son of Thomas and Dorinda W. (Wood) Penniman. He comes of substantial Colonial stock of English extraction, being a lineal descendant of one of the very early settlers on the shores of Massachusetts Bay; namely, James Penniman, who, with his wife, Lydia Eliot, and her brother, John Eliot, of honored memory as the apostle to the Indians, arrived on the ship “Lion” in 1631. The family name, it is said, was … Read more