Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Charles Clifton Penick Papers, 1837-1956. Accession 50987. Personal papers collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Purchased.

Biographical Information

Charles Clifton Penick was born in Charlotte County, Virginia on 9 December 1843. He was the son of Edwin Anderson Penick (1820-1862) and Mary Morris Hamner (1821-1881). He attended military school in Danville, Virginia, and soon afterward he went to Hampden-Syidney College. At the beginning of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate army and served with the 38th Virginia Infantry. He then entered the Theological seminary of Virginia at Alexandria, and was graduated in 1869. He was ordained deacon in the chapel of the seminary on 26 June 1869, and as priest on 24 June 1870. Rev. Penick served in Bristol, Virginia, and then in Mount Savage, Maryland. Three years later he accepted the rectorship of the Church of the Messiah in Baltimore, which post he held until 1877. Having been appointed missionary bishop of Cape Palmas and Parts Adjacent in western Africa, he was consecrated in St. Paul's Church, Alexandria, Virginia, on 13 February 1877. He received the degree of D. D. from Kenyon College in Ohio, in 1877. After six years' service in Africa, he sent in his resignation, which was accepted by the House of Bishops in 1883. Afterwards, Bishop Penick served in rectorships at St. Andrew's Church (Louisville, KY), St. Mark's (Richmond, VA), Christ Church (Fairmont, WV), and in Frankfort, KY. He married Mary E. Hoge (1845-1912) in Wheeling, West Virginia on 28 April 1881. Charles Clifton Penick died on 13 April 1914 at Enoch Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, where he had gone for medical treatment. He is buried in the St. John's Episcopal Church cemetery in Halifax, Virginia.

Scope and Content

Papers, 1837-1956, of Bishop Charles Clifton Penick (1843-1914) of Halifax County, Virginia, containing material relating to his service as Bishop of the Jurisdiction of Cape Palmas and Parts Adjacent, West Africa, including accounts and expenses, copies of minutes of the mission, letterbook of outgoing correspondence, and reports to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. There are also almanacs and diaries kept by Bishop Penick, correspondence, estate papers, patent papers, published works, scrapbooks, sermons, and tax records.

There is a good deal of correspondence from 1893 concerning a circular letter written by Penick entitled "The Negro and the Christian in the United States: A Study of the Census of 1890." Many of the letters are written to Penick by fellow clergymen expressing their views on Penick's opinions. The letters also relate to his appointment as general agent on the Church Commission for Work Among Colored People.

The collection also includes various scrapbooks. The first is from the Susanne Rochet Chapter of the Huguenot Society of the Founders of Manakin in the Colony of Virginia compiled by its founder, Elizabeth Alexander (Green) Penick (1887-1945). The second is a scrapbook of a Caribbean cruise sponsored by the Twenty-First Street Businessmen's Association of Norfolk, Virginia. compiled by Lucy Mead (Allen) Wilkinson (1885-1960). Finally, there are three scrapbooks containing newspaper clipppings relating to World War II by an unknown compiler.

There are also papers relating to a patent issued to Penick for a fan attachment for a baby carriage in 1897, and to Alexander Ridley Green (1841-1906) for a car-truck, issued in 1899. There is correspondence, specifications, and rough drawings.

Finally, there is an unpublished manuscript written by Cornelius Tacitus Allen (1841-1919) in 1904, while he was living in Audrain County, Missouri, expressing his views and opinions on why the South seceded from the Union, and fought the Federal armies for four years. The volume is not complete, and the pagination varies. For preservation reasons, the entire work has been photocopied.