Penn, Robert

Source:

 African American National Biography

Penn, Robert

(10 Oct. 1872–8 June 1912),

U.S. Navy sailor and Medal of Honor recipient, was a native of City Point, Virginia. Little regarding his family or early life prior to joining the navy is known for certain, except that he worked on a farm as a young man. Federal Census records indicate that he was likely raised in the Horse Pasture District of Ridgeway, Virginia, in Henry County, where the Penn surname was common among African Americans. While Penn's parentage is uncertain, two possibilities present themselves, either Liberty and Eliza Penn, or Robert Jr. and Critty Penn. Both families made their living as farmers in Ridgeway and both had a child named Robert.

It is not clear when Robert Penn joined the navy, but he probably did so in the early 1890s; by the time of his service in the Spanish American War in 1898 he had attained the rate of a fireman first class and was an experienced member of the ship's engine-room crew. Given his probable lack of seafaring experience prior to joining the navy, it seems likely that it took Penn some time to gain the training and experience to become skilled at tending to a ship's boilers and other related tasks that marked the job of a fireman. Penn was probably assigned to the battleship U.S.S. Iowa, the navy's most modern warship, when it was commissioned at Philadelphia in June 1897, continuing aboard the ship when it was assigned to blockade duty off Santiago, Cuba, in May 1898, a month after the outbreak of the Spanish American War. On 3 July the Iowa and its crew of over seven hundred men, Penn included, took part in the naval Battle of Santiago, in which the battleship played a major part in the sinking of six warships of the Spanish Fleet. While the Iowa was stationed off Santiago in the weeks after the battle on 20 July 1898, it suffered an explosion in its boiler room. Stationed in the compartment adjacent to the boiler room, Penn quickly made his way to the blast and found the floor covered with boiling water and the air filled with scalding steam. Penn not only rescued an injured shipmate and carried him to safety, but returned to the boiler room to combat the fire danger. He laid a plank supported by two buckets just above the scalding water on the floor, and from this precarious perch ferried multiple loads of flaming coals out of the compartment. By these actions, Penn not only saved a shipmate from being scalded to death, but also saved the ship from suffering further fire damage. He was soon thereafter recommended for the Medal of Honor, and was approved for the award 14 December 1898.

Some accounts of Penn's Medal of Honor heroics state that they took place in combat conditions during the Battle of Santiago, but this is incorrect; however, because he performed his deeds while the Iowa was on active duty in a war zone, he is classified as a Spanish American War Medal of Honor recipient. Additionally, it seems likely that Robert Penn's actions, had they taken place outside the war zone, would still have merited the award of the Medal of Honor, based on the previous peacetime awards made to other African American sailors such as Robert Sweeney, and Daniel Atkins. The heroics of black sailors like Robert Penn are notable in and of themselves not only because they resulted in the Medal of Honor but also because they are indicative of the vital contributions made by African American sailors to the U.S. Navy during the time period from the Civil War through the Spanish American War. Soon after the war, black sailors would be relegated to a servant status in the navy due to the influence of Jim Crow laws ashore, and would not be able to hold ratings such as that of fireman until the time of World War II.

After the Spanish American War, most of the details of Robert Penn's naval career and subsequent civilian life are uncertain. Whether he may have left the service on his own, or was forced out due to the increasing racism and limiting of black sailor's duties that occurred in the first decade of the twentieth century is unknown. In 1901 Penn married a woman named Hattie Washington, and by 1910 was out of the navy and residing in Philadelphia, where he put his fireman's skills to good use working in a machine shop. A short time later, under unknown circumstances, Penn went westward to Colorado. It is speculated that Penn may have gained employment with a railroad company, perhaps influenced by his brother-in-law, Cornelius Washington, who worked as a railroad porter. In any event, Penn's stay out West was short as he died at Las Animas, Colorado, due to unknown causes. His body is said to have been returned to Philadelphia, but the cemetery in which he was buried is unknown.

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