Thankful Pennock was probably the daughter of Jesse Pennock, of Strafford, VT. Jesse, in turn, was the son of James Pennock, and Thankful Boardman, of CT, and Strafford, VT. The relationshiop between Jesse Pennock and his father, James, is well established, but the relationshiop between Thankful, and her supposed father, Jesse, is circumstantial.
The family lived in Strafford, VT, not far from Hanover, NH, providing ample opportunity for Eleazar and Thankful to meet. Thankful signed a Strafford VT Deed (Vol B, pg 44) listing herself as "Thankful Pennock, of Hanover, State of New Hampshire". This ties the Thankful Pennock of Hanover with the Strafford Pennocks.
Thankful Pennock, named after her grandmother, is identified as the daughter of Jesse Pennock, of Strafford, VT, by Lee Pennock Huntington, author of "Brothers in Arms", published by The Countryman Press, Taftsville, VT, 1976. The book provides an entertaining account of the Pennock family, who fought as loyalists in the Revolutionary War.
No extant record of her death has been found, but it is known that she witnessed her husband's death 7 Dec 1811, and that the only adult male remaining on the farm, ELR Wheelock, joined the militia in 1812. It is presumed that he would not have left her alone, and that she must have died prior.
Sources:
[1] "Scotts in the New World", www.genealassie.com, follow links to Boardman Genealogy, http://www.genealassie.com/boardman/index.htm.
[2] "Brothers in Arms", Lee Pennock Huntington, The Countryman Press, Taftsville, VT, 1976.
[3] Correspondence with Sue Panik, who compiled family information from her great-grandmother, Dora K. Vehick Panik.
Matilda was born in 1836 in a log cabin in Illinois, where her parents were the first white settlers. In 1854, when Matilda was 18, her father took the family and migrated to Kansas where they were again the first white family into the area. Gardner Randolph hoped to get Kansas admitted to the Union as a slave state.
She spent ten years in Kansas, enduring not only the vagaries of Kansas weather, but the conflict raging about her in the days leading up to and including the Civil War. These conflicts included land disputes as abolitionists tried to drive her father out. There she married and bore four children, battling floods, prairie fires and drought before her husband was killed.
The following spring, in 1864, the loss of the war by then apparent, her father decided to join the family members already living in California. As a widow with three small children, the youngest of whom learned to walk on the trek across, Matilda traversed the Oregon-California Trail in a covered wagon, arriving in Hicksville, near Sacramento, in September of 1864.
There she met Alfred Wheelock, a young Argonaut, and found happiness again in a new love and new life. Throughout the story shines the courage of a woman who would not allow the world to defeat her.
Matilda's great-granddaughter, Jacquelyn Hanson, wrote a book about the life of this pioneer. The book is entitled "Matilda's Story: A Biographical Novel", by Jacquelyn Hanson, published by Glenhaven Press, 1997, ISBN: 0963726536.
(Source: Jacquelyn Hanson, a descendant of Matilda Randolph and Alfred Wheelock.)
_Abel WHEELOCK ______+
| (1739 - ....) m 1764
_Samuel WHEELOCK ____|
| (1773 - 1849) m 1803|
| |_Sarah FOSTER _______
| (1736 - ....) m 1764
|
|--Benjamin WHEELOCK
| (1809 - ....)
| _____________________
| |
|_Mary WILKINS _______|
(1784 - 1832) m 1803|
|_____________________
_Nathan Sherman WHEELOCK _+
| (1812 - 1891) m 1836
_Joseph Brayton WHEELOCK _|
| (1844 - 1909) |
| |_Maritta SAWYER __________
| (1816 - 1896) m 1836
|
|--Charles Elmer WHEELOCK
| (1864 - 1938)
| __________________________
| |
|_Jane Ann CLARK __________|
(1847 - 1890) |
|__________________________
Mercy was the daughter of Daniel Williams and Rebecca Hunt. (Source: "Wheelock Genealogy", by Carlyle C. Wheelock, and Winifred (Thomson) Gonseth, 1955)
Mercy shares a headstone with her husband, Lyman. She was aged 87 years at her death.