Sources: Excerpts from “HISTORIES PMSS 1899 A Novel Excursion by Maria McVay” and “DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH Moonshine” (post), both written by Helen Hayes Wykle, PMSS archivist and co-editor of the Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections website. 

The Reverend Penniman, was a faculty member at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, from 1895 to 1922, serving as Professor of Christian Evidences, a field agent, fundraiser, financial agent, and general evangelist for the school. He was known as the “expert” on mountain moonshine tales and a self-described and well-known authority on mountain culture. 

Berea for many years provided consultation and support to the schools in the southeastern corner of the state and was particularly fond of Hindman Settlement School and Pine Mountain Settlement School. Moonshine was often part of their concern and their somewhat exaggerated focus. At Berea, Penniman was their moonshine expert.

Dr. Penniman was particularly concerned by lifestyles that he saw in the Southern Appalachians and the toll taken on the lives of mountain people. As someone who had built up good relations with many of the people in the southeast corner of the state, he became a close observer of the culture and of the language and the wry humor of the people of the region. Not much was missed by Penniman, as seen in two tales both collected and somewhat concocted and, reportedly, recited by Penniman in public performances. Several of his tales have surrogate copies in the archival records at Pine Mountain Settlement and at Berea College. They are among many found in his book, Moonshine Life of the Mountains of Kentucky, which charts the use and abuse of moonshine. (It is not known whether the book was published.)

 An editorial note in The Berea Quarterly of 1908 describes his speaking and writing style:

Professor Penniman was…educated at Brown University and Andover Seminary, and has been connected with Berea since 1895. More than any other member of our Faculty,…he has come into immediate contact with the mountaineers. He is what the Kentuckians call a “good mixer,” and he has preached on half the creeks in Eastern Kentucky, entering into the real life of the people with a sympathy which opens their hearts.

Professor Penniman has a keen sense of the ludicrous and a good scent for literary material as well. Instead of giving a statistical or scientific account, he gives pictures, impressions, which have made his presentations of the mountain work most attractive, in spite of his being a ”minister of the Gospel” he has become a great impersonator, so that a business men’s club. or a camping party in the Adirondacks counts itself fortunate when it can secure an hour of his recitals. ….

HENRY PENNIMAN: Visit to Harlan County

During the time of Penniman’s tenure, Berea College’s president often encouraged visitors and their own faculty to visit the rugged mountains of eastern Kentucky to see firsthand how the mountaineers lived and to seek out mountain areas in need of educational support.

Penniman was a personal friend of Miss Katherine Pettit, PMSS co-founder and co-director. In 1899, she joined a Berea group of nineteen and their drivers and guides who traveled on horseback to Harlan County, Kentucky, led by Penniman, who was their designated “historian.” The group ventured deep into the southeastern mountains of Kentucky to explore Appalachian culture. It was Pettit’s first recorded journey into Harlan County. The well-known sociologist /geographer Ellen Churchill Semple was also part of this large party of adventurers. For a detailed description of that journey by Maria McVay, an author and one of the travelers, go to HISTORIES PMSS 1899 A Novel Excursion by Maria McVay. Pettit’s traveling companions were all major influencers on Pettit’s interest in Harlan County.

This experience, occurring before Pettit co-founded PMSS, laid the groundwork for Pettit’s later journeys into Harlan County while in search of a potential site for another mountain settlement school in the far eastern corner of the State.