Penstone Enterprises Incorporated
Penstone Enterprises Incorporated is the legal and operational entity for the management and preservation of the heritage Penstone farm in Pike County Illinois.
The farmland includes approximately 415 acres in seven parcels of which about 280 are row crop farmed alternating corn and soybeans each year. The Pike County parcels are:
53-003-08
53-004-05
53-009-09
53-009-10
53-010-02
53-010-03
53-010-09
76.25 Acres
158.40 Acres
78.57 Acres
1.71 Acres
46.25 Acres
23.91 Acres
29.84 Acres
7.4% Crop
82.1% Crop
68.5% Crop
0.0% Crop
73.1% Crop
92.3% Crop
92.3% Crop
In addition to the farm land and financial operational accounts the corporation owns vehicles and residental property in the nearby town of Griggsville.
Penstone Enterprises Incorporated is an Illinois corporation with the shares completely owned by the direct descendants of Kathryn Penstone.
Partners
The operations of the enterprise requires local expertise, skills, equipment, resources and connections. Our partners for farming and hunting are:
Dean High Performance Farms
Big Horn Outfitters
Land and Family History
The ancient indigenous residents included the Mound Builders of the Mississippian culture.
Following the disappearance of the Mound Builders after European contact the land was occupied by member tribes of the Illinois Confederation including the Cahokia and Kaskaskia people. The early French explorers used the name Pays des Illinois. In time these communities we challenges and displaced by the Fox and Sac tribes displaced from eastern conflicts.
In 1815 and 1816 the lands between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers including Pike County were surveyed and included in the Illinois Military Tract for grants to veterans of the War of 1812.
In 1832, the last of the Illinois tribal homelands were ceded to the Federal Government and indigenous survivors were removed to Kansas.
1848 – Landing of the Bark Thames with the Giles Penstone (b. 1812) and Sarah Stratton family in New Orleans and the initial purchase of 80 acres of land in Pike County, Illinois.
1862 – Giles Henry Penstone (b. 1838) enlists in Illinois Volunteers Company H 73rd Regiment. Returning from the was establishes a family with six children including Edward Giles Penstonei born in 1878.
1902 – Edward Giles Penstone marries Anna Birch and have two children Giles Henry Penstone (b. 1907) and Florence Penstone (b. 1911). Giles graduates from the University of Chicago with a law degree and works for the US Army and the US Department of Agriculture in multiple locations, but retains ownership of the land with his sister Florence.
1936 – Kathryn Ann Penstone is born in Chicago. Ultimately has three children; Edward, Anne and David and upon her death in 2014 the Farm assets
1981 – Giles Henry Penstone dies in Chicago, Illinois and the farm land and assets are placed into a trust Kathryn Ann Penstone.
2014 – Kathryn Ann Penstone dies in Boulder, Colorado and her three children reintegrate the portions of the land owned by Giles and Florence into the Penstone Enterprises corporation.