Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Barclay PENNOCK
BARCLAY PENNOCK, born in East Marlborough, Chester Co., Jan. 26, 1821, died March 9, 1858, at the place of his birth, was the son of Moses and Mary J. Pennock. He early manifested an ardent desire for knowledge, and the early defects of his education were supplied by the exertions of a life devoted to study. Beginning at the school in the neighborhood, established by, and then under care of, the Kennet Monthly Meeting of Friends, of which society his parents were members, with Samuel Martin as his first teacher, he thence passed to the academy in Kennet Square, where, under Joseph B. Phillips, he studied the higher mathematics and began Latin and French. Afterwards, in company with his friends, Joseph B. and John B. Phillips, he sought instruction in Greek and Latin and in general literature at Kinderhook, N. Y. He spent two years in Europe, studying the language and literature of Germany, Italy, and France and visiting places of historic interest, as one of the traveling party led by Bayard Taylor, the story of which tour is so familiar to the reader of "Views Afoot."
In October, 1851, he again went to Europe, and after a short visit to Germany spent the winter in Copenhagen, studying the language of Northern Europe, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic. Here he enjoyed the personal acquaintance and friendship of Hans Christian Andersen and Mr. Goldsmith, another literary celebrity of Denmark.
For two months in the following spring he was in the family of Count Frys, a Danish nobleman, on his landed estate, "Frysenborg," on the peninsula of Jutland, where he had been kindly introduced by Mr. Goldsmith. The count and countess had stadied English, and were intelligent and sociable, and much facilitated Mr. Pennock's acquaintance with the domestic and social life of the better classes of the people. Mr. Pennock then journeyed through the interiors of Sweden and Norway, chiefly on foot, and going as far north as Drontheim, where the nights in summer are only a prolonged twilight. In this tour through the country among the peasantry, Mr. Pennock formed a high opinion of the brotherly kindness, manliness, and thrift of the people whom he met and observed at their everyday occupations and in their humble homes. At Stockholm he met some interesting personages, and among them Frederika Bremer, who had then recently returned from her American tour.
From Stockholm Mr. Pennock carried an introduction from the United States Minister there, Mr. Schroeder, to Mr. Willard Fisk, an American student at the University of Upsala, afterwards a professor at Cornell University, at Ithaca, N. Y. After visiting the porphyry quarries and copper-mines of Elfdal, he crossed the Dovrefield Mountains on foot. From Drontheim, going southward, "by fiord and by fell," he halted at Bergen, Christiania, an other prominent points, reaching Upsala again in the following autumn.
After five years' study and observation he returned home, there he engaged in literary pursuits. He translated " The Religion of the Northmen," a work written by Professor Keyser, of Christiania, Norway, which he published, with an elaborate "Introduction" by himself. This work met the approval and welcome of scholarly men.
Mr. Pennock left ready for the press two other translations, one a romance of Iceland about the time of the introduction of Christianity,there, which contains a description of the struggles attendant on the change from an old faith to a new one, together with descriptions of scenery, pictures of domestic life among the Icelanders, etc.; the other work is a volume of fireside legends, or " Folklore," of ancient Scandinavia.
Barclay Pennock was married, Feb. 8, 1857, to Miss Lydia A. Caldwell, of Cayuga Co., N. Y., a lady of refinement, literary acquirements, and intellectual force, who had published some poems of great merit, which lady died April 13, 1857. This was a terrible blow to Mr. Pennock, whose own health was impaired. In his well·kept diary, in the space allotted to that day, without a word, he drew with his well-skilled hand a mound with a cross at the head. He survived his wife less than one year.
Mr. Pennock had an active brain, a correct eye, and a deft hand; was fond of the principles of mechanism, and possessed of such skill in drawing as to have at one time considered whether to make it and engraving the profession and business of his life; but the bent of his mind was towards the scientific knowledge of mental phenomena. He was ambitious of a learned and noble manhood, but not of fame,-not for the vain glory of "a great name rattling behind him,"--but held for his motto:
" Do what all men, if they knew It,
Could not choose but praise;
Then, should no one know you do it,
Better price it pays."
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