Sydney Oswald Penington: Texas Revolutionary and Legislator (1809–1837)
By: L. W. Kemp
Published: 1952
Updated: April 28, 2019
Sydney Oswald Penington, participant in the siege of Bexar and legislator, was born in Christian County, Kentucky, on February 27, 1809. In 1834 he moved from Arkansas Territory to Texas and settled in what is now Shelby County, where he engaged in surveying. On October 17, 1835, he enrolled in John M. Bradley's company of volunteers for the Texas army and on November 22 was elected second lieutenant. He participated in the siege of Bexar and was honorably discharged from the army on December 17, 1835.
Penington and William C. Crawford represented Shelby Municipality in the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and there signed the Declaration of Independence. Penington enlisted in James Chesser's company of Jasper Volunteers on March 23, 1836. He represented Shelby County in the House of the First Congress of the republic, from October 3, 1836, to June 14, 1837. He died on October 28, 1837, and was buried in the cemetery at Shelbyville. In 1936 the Texas Centennial Commission erected a monument at his grave.
Bibliography:
Sam Houston Dixon, Men Who Made Texas Free (Houston: Texas Historical Publishing, 1924). Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence (Salado, Texas: Anson Jones, 1944; rpt. 1959).
Time Periods:
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
L. W. Kemp, “Penington, Sydney Oswald,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/penington-sydney-oswald.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
FPE25
- 1952
- April 28, 2019
