John Penn was a prominent lawyer and politician and was one of three North Carolinians to sign the Declaration of Independence.
John Penn was born in Caroline County, Virginia, to a family of means. His father died when he was eighteen years old, and though he had received only a rudimentary education at a country school, he had access to the library of his relative Edmund Pendleton. He was licensed to practice law in the state of Virginia at age twenty-two.
In 1774 he moved to Granville County, North Carolina, where he established a law practice and soon became a gentleman member of the political community. He was elected to attend the provincial Congress in 1775 and elected to the Continental Congress that same year. He served there until 1777, participating in committee work. He was again elected in 1779, appointed to the Board of War, where he served until 1780.
He declined a judgeship in his native state around that time, due to failing health. In retirement he engaged in his law practice. He died at the age of forty-eight.
John Penn was originally buried near the family home in Granville County. In 1894, the managers of the then private battleground, seeking to make the site North Carolina's first Revolutionary War cemetery, arranged to have Penn's remains disinterred and reburied at the Guilford Courthouse Battleground site. A Memorial, alternately called the Signers' Monument or the Hooper-Penn-Hewes Monument, marks the location of Penn's remains. His remains were reinterred with another signer of the Declaration of Independence, William Hooper. The grave of the third signer, Joseph Hewes, was lost and the whereabouts of his remains is unknown.
There are some who disapprove of these reburials and this monument is not featured very prominently in the Military Park's literature. (The park does try and put a positive spin on the affair with interpretive signage, calling the relationship between the Military Park and the Signers a "symbolic" one.) Penn and Hooper, while certainly important figures in North Carolina and United States history, played no role in the battle that was fought here.
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The Signers' Monument at Guilford Courthouse is the final resting place of John Penn and William Hooper. The monument honors all three of North Carolina's "Signers" and the figure is representative of all three.