Most historical accounts of Dr. Pennington's life are based on his autobiography, The Fugitive Blacksmith, in which he recorded his cruel experiences of slavery, and describes his escape to the north. The book was published in London, in 1849, and went through three editions. Pennington was born in Maryland in 1809. At the age of four he, his mother, and his older brother were given to his master's son and taken to Washinton County. Pennington was hired out as a stonemason and a blacksmith. In 1830, when he could no longer endure slave brutality, he ran away to Pennsylvania. There he was aided by Quakers, who sent him to Long Island, New York. Pennington diligently pursued an education, and within five years began teaching in Black schools.
Later, feeling he had received a calling from God, Pennington went to New Haven, Connecticut and entered a theological seminary. He was ordained and became a proficient preacher of the Presbyterian faith. In Hartford, Connecticut he was made president of the Union Missionary Society, a forerunner of the American Missionary Association, which urged its members not to buy slave-produced goods. Pennington was elected twice as president of the all-white Hartford Central Association of Congregational Ministers. During his presidency, it was one of his duties to give examinations in the knowledge of church history and theology to those wishing to become misisters and to sign their certificates accordingly. He was elected five times to the membership of the General Convention for the Improvement of the Free Colored People.
In 1843, the state of Connecticut elected Pennington as a delegate to attend the world's Anti-slavery Convention; and he was also elected a delegate by the American Peace Convention to represent them in the World's Peace Society, both held in London. In all, he made three trips to London. His pulpit brilliance won notoriety and many complimentary press notices. While abroad, he preached and made speeches in the presence of some of the most refined and aristocratic audiences of Europe, including London, Paris, and Brussels. Some historians indicate that his third trip abroad was in 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. Fearing recapture as a run-away slave, a fact he had not mentioned to his wife, he left the states until a fee of $150.00 was made to his former master, and he was offically freed June 5, 1851. Further, historians say that during this period, he was awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree by the University of Heidelberg, Germany; the first black man to receive such an honor.
Pennington organized the New York Legal Rights Association and led his church in some of America's earliest peaceful demonstrations. Throught the NYLRA, he instituted a lawsuit against the Sixth Avenue Railroad Company for the right of Blacks to use public conveyances. Although the suit was unsuccessful, the association's action did eventually achieve a degree of equality within the city's transportation system. Before his death in Florida in 1870, Dr. Pennington expended great energies in denouncing every affront to first-class citizenship.