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William Sandford Pennington (1757 – September 27, 1826) was the sixth Governor of New Jersey, serving from 1813–1815.

The Pennington Family of New Jersey is descended from Ephraim Pennington II, one of the first settlers of Newark, New Jersey, whose father, also Ephraim Pennington I, immigrated to New Haven, Connecticut around 1643.

Pennington was the sixth of the nine children of Mary Sanford (1725–1805) and Samuel Pennington (1725–1791), and was born in 1757 in Newark. He was most likely trained as a hatter, but at the outbreak of the Revolution joined the Continental Army at the start of the American Revolutionary War, and became, in 1777, a sergeant in the Second Regiment of Artillery under Colonel John Lamb and Major General Henry Knox. He advanced to the rank of second lieutenant in 1780, and at the end of the war was brevetted captain by a special act of Congress.

Pennington married Phoebe Wheeler (c. 1760–1804), the daughter of Rhoda Lyon and Captain James Wheeler (c. 1740–1777), around 1786. They had ten children together, one of whom, William Pennington (1796-1862), also became a governor of New Jersey and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. After Phoebe’s death, William Sanford Pennington married Elizabeth Pierson (c. 1765–1840) on July 13, 1805.

After leaving the army, Pennington studied law in the Newark office of Elias Boudinot, in addition to serving in the New Jersey General Assembly in 1797, 1798, and 1799. He was elected to the New Jersey Senate in 1801 and reelected in 1802, the same year he was admitted to the bar as an attorney. During the next two years he served as the clerk of Essex County, New Jersey and was elected to fill a vacancy in the New Jersey Supreme Court, where he remained on the bench until 1813. For the majority of that time, he was also the Supreme Court’s reporter. In 1812, Pennington was the Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey and the following year won the gubernatorial election, becoming New Jersey’s governor from 1813-1814. The year after he left office, President James Madison appointed him a judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, a position that he kept until his death eleven years later.

His papers are archived with The New Jersey Historical Society in Newark, New Jersey.

• List of Governors of New Jersey

• New Jersey State Library biography for William Sandford Pennington (PDF)
• New Jersey Historical Society Archives: William S. Pennington
• New Jersey Governor William Sanford Pennington, National Governors Association
• Virtual American Biography for William Sanford Pennington

v • d • e Governors of New Jersey

Livingston • Paterson • Howell • Bloomfield • Ogden • W.S. Pennington • M. Dickerson • Williamson • Vroom • Southard • Seeley • P. Dickerson • W. Pennington • Haines • Stratton • Fort • Price • Newell • Olden • Parker • Ward • Randolph • Bedle • McClellan • Ludlow • Abbett • Green • Werts • Griggs • Voorhees • Murphy • Stokes • Fort • Wilson • Fielder • Edge • Edwards • Silzer • Moore • Larson • Hoffman • Edison • Driscoll • Meyner • Hughes • Cahill • Byrne • Kean • Florio • Whitman • DiFrancesco • McGreevey • Codey • Corzine