Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-06-11
: A Most Remarkable Story.

In New York City, the other day,
writes the correspondent of the St.
Louis Republican, by permission of JUS
tice Cooke, Il. f. @. Pennell, who claims
to be the son of the Rev. Geo. G. PEN
nell, served his alleged father with
amended complaint in his suit nominally
to recover board furnished by one Ra-
phel REM, when plaintiff was an infant,
but really to establish his parentage.
The suit has developed one OF the most
curious rOmances in life ever drawn to
light through the agency of the courts.
The Rev. Mr.. Pennell has been obliged
to step down and out from the prosper
GUS Episcopal pulpit he has so long oc-
Cupied. Mr.. Pennel, until recently,
has been pastor of the leading Episcopal
Church in Newark. He is portly and
prosperous. In the height of his pros
perity man turns up who claims to be
his son and who, in establishing that
claim, lays bare a secret chapter in the
minister's life. The Rev. Mr.. Pennell,
when theological student, became init
mate with Miss Mary Hannah Schroep-
pei, member of wealthy family of
the town of Schroeppel, Oswego Coun-
ty, and became engaged to her. They
were secretly married on May 10, 1862,
by Rev. j. b. Wood, of the Sands Street
M, E. Church, the sole witnesses to the
marriage being the sexton of the
church, George Dickson, and Matilda
Patten, menial in the officiating minis.
ter's family. On June 10, 1852, the bride
gave birth to a male child. The infant
was taken away from the house by DR..
Pennell, the young minister father now
dead, who led the young
mother to believe that it was dead.
When she recovered she was turned off
by her husband and abandoned as his
wife. AS her marriage was u secret
from all her relations, she returned to
her old home and lived as a single wom-
an under her maiden name until her
death some four or five years ago. She
did not dream that her son was living
and was being reared in ignorance by a
German in the suburbs of Brooklyn, to
whom, as an infant, the child had been
taken. Before Hannah Schr0eppel died,
she told the secret of her marriage and
the birth of her child to her confidential
legal adviser, ex-Attorney-G General Pratt,
who drew her will. She gave all of her
property to charity, believing that she
had no heirs. Ex-Attorney- General
Pratt, in recent letter upon the case,
wrote: -
81 will only add that the plot of no
romance ever read by me equals the
actual history of the case taken from the
commencement TO the present time.
The heartless abandonment OF a good,
woman by her husband, with
the frauds and deceits practiced upon
her by his father, exceed in atrocity any
thing we read of in the most exaggerat-
ed stories in novels of the day. [ men
tion no names, for the reason that l re-
ceived the whole story from her own
lips, and of course have no means of
verifying them except that the marriage
can be proved by the records, copies of
which are extant. The marriage, CO.
habitation for nearly year, the birth of
the child and her abandonment, all were
entirely unknown to her family until
after her death. She was supposed by
them and her acquaintances in this part
of the country to be single woman, and
was known only by her maiden name"
The present suit of the son, r. F. G.
Pennel, is based upon claim of
81, ,444 for his own board, assigned to
him by Raphael REM, the German who
reared him, and who ceased to receive
pay for keeping him after the death of
DIR. Pennell. On a recent examination
of the Rev. Mr.. Pennell before a com,
mission he admitted the marriage, the
birth of the child, the abandonment
and his re-marriage, but he claimed
that this last was rendered possible by
the divorce which his first wife obtained
from him for abandonment. Mr.. Pen.
nell has endeavored to make it appear
that this is a case of blackmail, but the
facts strongly point to the contrary.
The only difficulty has been to com.
pletely establish the identity of the
plaintiff with the young bride'g child,
and advertisements have been inserted
for the nurse who attended at his birth,
but without effect. The case has created
much excitement among Episcopalians
because of defendants prominence.