AUBURN – Penley descendants, friends and neighbors will mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Penley progenitor, Joseph Penley, at the 37th annual all-faith church service at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 10, at the 172-year-old Penley Corner Church.

Located three miles south of Main Street on Riverside Drive, which is also Route 136, the land for the church and $1,000 for the church building were donated in 1833 by Capt. John Penley, eldest son of Joseph and Esther Fogg Penley.

The Rev. Nathan Colson, pastor of the Turner Village Church, Turner, will deliver the sermon, “This Old House.”

Audrey Colson, soloist and song leader, will sing “Abide with Me” and “Have Thine Own Way, Lord.”

Guests will be welcomed by bagpiper Wayne C. Penley Sr. and Maurice Penley of Auburn, and Wilbur M. Penley of Forest Hill, Md., will be ushers. Elaine Penley Ordway of Turner, will tend the guest book. Jean H. Penley of Forest Hill, Md., will be the pianist, and Norman Rose of Auburn, will play the melodeon.

All are invited to fellowship and refreshments after the service at the homestead of Charles and Louise Bowie Sylvester, located across the street from the church. The Sylvesters, with the assistance of their son, Bill, have been instrumental in maintaining the church building for more than 50 years.

The grave of Revolutionary War patriot Joseph Penley is located in the family cemetery beside the church. Penley was born in 1755 in Nailsworth, England, and arrived in Freeport in 1770. Penley married widow Esther Fogg Johnson, with whom he had 10 children.

After Esther’s death in 1796, Penley married Thankful Moody with whom he had six children. Thirteen of the children lived to adulthood, married and had families primarily in the Danville-Auburn area.

Family genealogists will be available for lineage consultation before and after the service. They continue to search for descendants throughout Maine, New England and other states and provinces from Massachusetts to California and British Columbia.

One great-grandson, Ephraim Crockett Penley, remained in Mississippi after the Civil War where he married and a number of his descendants now live.

Daughters and granddaughters are known to have married into the Ackley/Akeley, Crockett, Dakin, Davis, Dingley, Dyer, Garcelon, Hackett, Haines, Hodgkin, Jordan, Marshall, Mitchell, Packard, Randall, Vickery, Wagg and Waterhouse families in Androscoggin, Cumberland, Franklin, Oxford, Piscataquis and Somerset counties.

Descendants who are unable to attend the service are urged to contact Janice Robbins Freeman, 5 Fullerton Ct., Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538, e-mail her at [email protected], or call 633-9922.