Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Abraham Liddon PENNOCK
Abraham Liddon Pennock, Sr., was born in Philadelphia, PA August 7, 1786. For thirty years he resided in that city, engaged in business, first as a dry goods merchant, the firm being Pennock & Robbins, and afterwards in the wire business of the firm of Sellers and Pennock. Here he was the originator of the riveted hose, the superiority of which over the sewed method enabled the firm to bring it into universal use, and caused the United States government to enter its contract with them for the making of all mail bags used in its service. In 1840 he retired from business and moved to Haverford Township. Subsequently he undertook the care of a number of estates. In the fall of 1845 he moved to Upper Darby Township, where he remained until his death on May 12, 1868. He was preeminently a man who had the courage of his convictions. When slavery was advocated in the South, as a "divine institution," and apologized for in the North, he would neither use the products of slave labor nor allow his family to do so, preferring at greater expense and trouble to procure goods elsewhere. His entire life was exemplified with high ideals, and he was "ever ready to aid the temperance cause with purse or pen." He erected at his own expense a Temperance Inn for the accommodation of travelers, in order to forestall the building of one already begun where liquors were to be sold. The poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote of him: "He was my friend and councilor tn the dark and troubled times of 1838-39 and 40, a man of antique heroism, against whom the bitterest enemies of freedom could find nothing to urge. I think he came near to my ideal of a true Christian gentleman than any one else I ever knew. " He was a zealous advocate of abolitionism, active in the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, and made his country home an underground station for runaway slaves. At the Darby Meeting of the Society of Friends, on May 24, 1810, he received certification to marry, doing so on June 7, 1810, to Elizabeth Sellers, daughter of John and Mary (Coleman) Sellers, of Philadelphia. She was born August 26, 1791, in Philadelphia, and died June 18, 1870.
The original "Hoodland" was built by John Sellers in 1823. The home burned down and was reconstructed in 1878. The estate was home to one of the areas well-known abolitionists from the pre-Civil War era, Abraham L. Pennock.
"Hoodland" remained in the Pennock/Sellers Family until Sarah Pennock Sellers bequeathed it to Upper Darby Township for a library when she died in 1933. Today "Hoodland" is still the home of the Township's Sellers Memorial Library.
Pa. State Marker Text:
This prominent abolitionist and patron of the arts resided here at Hoodland until his death in 1868. The home had been built in 1823 by his father-in-law, John Sellers II. A leader in the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, Abraham Pennock also was an advocate of woman suffrage, and active in the temperance movement. Notable visitors to his home included John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell.
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