THE TYPE OF SAILING SHIP ON WHICH THE PENSTONES CAME TO AMERICA

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The bark is a three-masted vessel with the foremast and mainmast square rigged and the mizzenmast fore-and-aft rigged. The mizzenmast carries no yards: there is a hoist-and-lower fore-and-aft sail and a gaff topsail.

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COMING TO THE USA

In the Spring of 1849 Giles and Sarah (Stratton) Penstone with their five children came to America on a sailing vessel. It took 6 weeks to cross the ocean from England. They departed from Liverpool and arrived in New Orleans. They arrived by steam boat in Griggsville, Illinois by coming up the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois and then on the Ilinois River . One of the children who was 6 years old said he thought he that he had never seen anything so grand as the river steamboat they boarded in New Orleans. The only thing he remembered about the ocean voyage was getting his finger caught in a mouse-trap.

On July 25, 1849 they arrived at Valley City, Illinois on the Illinois River and expected to stay at Griqqsville (several miles inland), but there was a cholera scare so they had to go a little farther to Maysville and stayed with the Saunders family in a log cabin and later in a hotel. Great great grandfather helped around the hotel or tavern whichever it was called to help pay expenses for room and board. When the family arrived in IIIinois they had $250.

Great great grandmother was very homesick and her husband told that she and the little girl (Sarah) could return to England after the first wheat crop was harvested. He wouldn't return because he wanted to make a place in Illinois for the four boys. Giles farmed near Maysville for three years and then bought a farm in Newburg township in 1853 and by adding to it he acquired 750 acres. In 1868 Giles and Sarah returned to England for a year's visit leaving the young children with the married ones.

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