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Penn Yonge comes from a long line of wealthy Englishmen with estates and summer homes in Shropshire England. Then about 1715 Francis Yonge moved to South Carolina, and by 1747 his son Henry had aquired a summer estate in Skidaway Island off the coast of Savannah, GA.

Son Henry,and his sons Henry Jr, William John, Phiilip, were British Loyalists during the American Revolution, and were proclaimed traitors and lost all their property in 1778.  This Phillip is Penn Yonge's grandfather.

So let's start with Penn's genealogy, 4 generations older than Penn Yonge, his great great grandfather Francis.

[This family liked to use the same names from generation to generation, so I have added numbers for each generation to help the reader, beginning with number 14.]

14 Francis Yonge b.1682- d.Oct 18 1748 prob USA
+ Elizabeth Fletcher 1685-1721, married abt 1708 England
Father of 13 Henry Sr.

Francis Yonge was Commissary of the Ordnance for England during the War of the Spanish Succession.
Francis had established himself in Charleston, South Carolina, prior to 1716 and served as Surveyor-General of South Carolina and the Bahamas, being granted a town lot in Beaufort, SC in 1718. In the same year, he became a member of the Lords Proprietors of South Carolina but,
 in 1735, appears to have returned to London, where he lived for the remainder of his life, granting to his son, Henry, his lands in South Carolina, which included Orange Island (later renamed Yonge's Island) in 1743.

Francis and Elizabeth had at least 8 children, all born in England.
1. Philip Yonge Bishop of Bristol and Norwich. Born in Lisbon in 1709. Educated at Westminster School from 1718 and admitted a pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1728. Doctor of Divinity 1750. Master of Jesus College, Cambridge 1752-58, then Bishop of Bristol from 1758 and later Norwich from 1761-83. He advocated medical care for the poor. On 15th December 1761 he married Anne daughter of Calverley Bewicke of Clapham in Surrey. He died at Westminster on 23rd April 1783 and was buried on the 1st May following at the Grosvenor Chapel in Mayfair.
2. The Hon. Henry Yonge (Penn's relative, see below)
3. Samuel Yonge, baptized at St.Andrews, Holborn on 21st February 1715. Nothing more is known of him.
4. Elizabeth Yonge, baptized at St.Pauls, Covent Garden on 24th December 1713.
5. Charlotte Yonge, she may have married Peter Vaumorell in 1756?
6. Catherine Yonge, baptized at St.Andrews, Holborn on 6th January 1717.
7. Mary Yonge, baptized at St.Andrews, Holborn on 18th February 1719.
8. Jane Yonge, baptized in St.Andrews Parish, Berkeley, South Carolina on 16th July 1720. She died young.


13 Henry Yonge Sr 1712-1779
+ Elizabeth Bellinger 1724- Mar 23 1767, daughter of Capt. William Bellinger, married abt 1745 Georgia, BCA

He was baptized at St.Pauls, Covent Garden on 28th August 1712. He presumably travelled to South Carolina with his father. 
in 1747, Henry received a grant of land at Skidaway Island, which he named Cedar Groves. 

Henry had 3 sons, then a daughter with his first wife Elizabeth
12 Henry Yonge, Jr.1749-1789
12 Dr. William John Yonge 1751-1823
12 Phillip Yonge 1754-1782
12 Frances Simpson Yonge 1756-1828

At his Orangedale summer home in 1765, he planted Samuel Bowen's soy beans or 'Chinese vetch' as he described them which represented the first soy crop in America
Henry became Surveyor-General of Georgia in 1764 and then a member of the King's Council in 1770

Abstract of the will of Henry Yonge dated 18 March 1777 naming his children Henry, William John, Philip and Frances Simpson Yonge by his first marriage; Elizabeth Sarah,
 Anne Agnes and Francis Edward Yonge by his second marriage; his widow [sic] Christiana Yonge.


Henry and his sons were declared traitors.

The Georgia legislature on Mar 1 1778 proclaiming the following Yonge family members, 
among many others, were guilty of high treason and the State was 
confiscating all their real and personal property:

13 Henry Yonge, Sr. 
12 Henry Yonge, Jr.
12 Dr. William John Yonge
12 Phillip Yonge 1754-1782
[Henry Sr may have had another son 12 Francis b.1747 is not listed, he may already be dead]


12 Henry Yonge, Jr. 

born in 1749? He fled with his father to Florida because of his Loyalist sympathies during the American Revolution. Served as Acting Attorney General in East Florida and was ultimately appointed Secretary and Register of the Bahamas in 1788. On 26th May 1768 he married Mary daughter of James Powell by his wife Mary Williams.


12 Dr. William John Yonge 1751- Mar 6 1823
+Frances Edwards, daughter and co-heir of Humphrey Pitt, married 1774

In a deposition he made in England 1783, he is a native of GA who was sent in 1770 to be educated in England and attend at the hospitals.
 He returned to GA in 1774 to follow his profession and purchased lands and slaves to the value of f400 sterling. He refused the rebel oath. 

On the arrival of the British fleet from Boston in January 1776 he was obliged to quit his house in Savannah and retire to his plantation; he was suspected of corresponding
 with the British and supplying them with provisions. He escaped with his father and brothers in the night and arrived in England in May 1776. His father sailed from the Bahamas
 for Britain on February 1789 but his ship was never heard of again: 

He left a wife and four children. Claim for a house and lot in Savannah; a moiety of 400 acres in Christ Church Parish; a share of his father's estate; negroes etc. 

Evidences: Certificate of sale of 150 acres of confiscated land on Skidaway Island 17 December 1783. Deposition he made in England 1783, he was late of EF, now of Bristol and about to depart for the Bahamas, 1785.

Dr William Yonge, returned to England after the Revolutionary War and is said to have initially made efforts to recover the family's ancestral estate at Edgmond from the Briscoe family.

William was left the Beckbury estate in Shropshire by his sister-in-law Mrs Maria Edwards (born Pitt) in trust for when his son Henry came of age. He built Caynton House in this estate in 1803.


12 Henry Yonge Jr. 1749-1789 Sailed from Bahamas, lost at sea
+ Mary Powell 1747-aft 1789, married 1768 Georgia

12 Captain Phillip Yonge 1754 Savannah - Jan 21 1782, father of 11 Henry below
+ Christian MacKenzie 1754-1830, daughter of Capt. William MacKenzie, married 1775 NC

In a memorial by his brother William John Yonge on behalf of the widow and children, sworn 16 June 1783 London. deceased was a native of GA and son of Henry Yonge, Surveyor-General of GA, who died in 1778. 

On his father's death, Philip Yonge succeeded him as Surveyor-General, but received a salary of only E50 a year to support his wife and four young children. 

On his way from St. Augustine to GA he was taken by the French fleet. stripped of all he possessed. and imprisoned for a time at Philadelphia before being released on parole. He remained in SC until Savannah was reduced when he was appointed Capt. 
 of Militia Co; he was responsible for capturing several French cannon during their retreat.

He died in January 1782, aged 28, and his office was given to his brother-in-law George McKenzie expressly for the support of Philip Yonge's widow and children, but the appointment was not reconfirmed in London and no salary was received from the post.
Evidences: A page of the Georgia Gazette Of January ( ? | 1782. (12/99/273, IW/322; 13/38/211, 217-223). 


11 Henry Yonge 1776-1833
+ Jane Ann Cox 1788-1833, married 1807 FL
about 9 sons children, 4 daughters
select sons listed here that relate to our story

10 William Phillip 1797 Nassau, Bahamas-1869 lived in Columbus for a time
10 Henry A Yonge 1799 Nassau, Bahamas -1859 lived in Geneva, Coffee, AL
10 Walter Story Chandler Yonge 1816 Nassau co, FL -1873 lived in Opelika 1866-1872
10 Chandler Cox Yonge 1818 Savannah -1889 lived in Pensacola, served as District Attorney, then Quartermaster for the Confederacy, and achieved the rank of major. 
son Phillip Keyes (P.K.) Yonge is the namesake of the P.K. Yonge Libary of History, Univ. of Florida
10 George Christian Yonge 1822 Atens, GA -1869 robbed and murdered on the FL/Miss state line
10 William Penn Chandler Yonge 1823 Athens, GA -1878 (our feature)


Penn's father Henry Yonge led a very colorful life as well. Note that Henry ran a sugar mill and rum distillery that required kilns similar to the iones used by his son Penn 40 years later.


Natives and visitors in the Ormond Beach, 40 miles south of St. Augustine, just north of Daytona Beach, are aware that a section of Route 1 is called Yonge Avenue but many are unaware of the history of the man for whom the street is named. 

Henry Yonge was born on Skidaway Island off the coast of Savannah, Georgia in l776.

His family were prominent loyalists. This forced his father, Phillip, who was proclaimed a traitor and and had his property confiscated, to flee to the West Indies during and after the Revolution. 

Henry spent his youth in Wilmington, North Carolina, with his stepfather James Fleming, with whom his mother married about 1786 when he was about 10.  James was not a loyalist. 

1796-1803
Later, as a young man, Henry married Elizabeth Nutall 1796 in Savannah, then moved to Nassau, Bahamas for eight years before his wife died in 1803, then he returned to the mainland. 

1803-1809
On Dec 18 1803, Henry wrote from St. Augustine, "I landed here after being captured by a French  Cutter and robbed which has reduced me to a low ebb. I have obtained in East Florida on the Moacheta Riveer, about 40 miles south of St. Augustine a tract of ...850 acres said to be very valuable."

Spain was eager to settle Florida and in 1803 Henry received a Spanish grant of 850 acres on the Mosquito River (later Halifax River) in what is now Ormond, from the river to the Old King's Road. He called the property "Moscheto". On an 1850 survey the property was just north of what is now Division Street. 

Henry was young and eager to take over what was called Oswald's Swamp Settlement, a former British sugar plantation, sugar mill and rum distillery. These remains are the oldest in the US. It was first establshed in 1764 by Scotsman Richard Oswald on 20000 acres granted by King George III. After Britain ceded Florida back to Spain in 1783, by late 1785 the Swamp Settlement was abandoned.

So it seems that he is living in St. Augustine at this time, and has an overseer in Mosceto.

Henry had "only six slaves" to continue to develop the property he had acquired. He thought the high price of sugar in Europe would make his planting of cane highly profitable. But the going became tougher and tougher. In a letter to his mother he complained of how hard it was to work the land and realize a profit. 

In addition to sugar cane for molasses Henry raised rice, cotton, and indigo. 
But in 1809 he finally had to give up after six dismal years of illness and struggle. He formed a partnership with his cousin Phillip Yonge, on the St. Marys River. 

It is worth noting that the sugar mill Yonge developed was well advanced for its time. He brought in skilled stone cutters and he had a brick kiln built. The crusher itself was animal drawn (oxen were used). Some of the walls and part of the chimney are still standing - evidence of the fine workmanship that went into their construction. The layout and construction of the mill were supervised by experienced operators from Georgia and from abroad. The lower floors of the mill were tabby - a mix of burnt oyster shells and sand. The upper floors around the kettles were brick, The chimney was coquina and brick.

The fire boxes were lines with fire brick. The remains show both Spanish size and English size brick dimensions which suggests two periods of construction. The construction contained iron corner ties and used a special mortar - unusually strong for the time. The rafters of the house were wooden and the roof had cedar shakes. 

After 1809
After Henry's death in 1834, the Yonge Grant in Ormond was sold in 1850 to the Swift Brothers who worked the property for years for its live oak whose timbers were sent to a shipyard in New England. Later, in 1873, the Corbin Lock Company of New Britain, Connecticut bought the grant and split it between ten families, some of whose descendants are still in the Ormond area. 

Now all that's left are The Three Chimneys Historical marker, and Henry's 3 brick kilns that still exist and are preserved.

When Henry sold the Ormond property, he wrote his mother "I have been so unsuccesful at Moscheto that I have abandoned it, and am making a new settlement about 7 or 8 miles from this place (St. Augustine) on the Spanish side of St. Mary's River on land belonging to my good cousin Phillip K. Yonge.


Henry Yonge Sources:

11/27/1834 Macon Messenger and Journal p4
3/6/1975 Orlando Sentinal p41
THE YONGE, PLANTATION by Harold Cardwell, Sr.,  Source: Volusia County Record September 1965, by Mrs. Eileen H. Butts, member Ormond Beach Historic Landmark Preservation Board.
Letters from Phillip K. Yonge kept at the P.K. Yonge Library of History, Univ. of Florida
The Orlando Sentinel, Thu, 06 Mar 1975 Page 41 Ormond History
Three Chimneys Sugar Mill, by Jaime Montilla
Family Destinations Guide
 https://familydestinationsguide.com/british-sugar-plantation-florida/


Other Sources:

Book History of Georgia p420
PK Yonge Library of History, Univ of Florida https://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/yonges.html
British History Online
A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 10, Munslow Hundred (Part),
 the Liberty and Borough of Wenlock.
 Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1998.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/salop/vol10/pp240-247
Book- American Migrations 1765-1799 p.794
Yonge of Caynton House and the U.S.A.,
 https://freepages.rootsweb.com/
 ~londonaye/family/yonge_family.htm