The Three Black Pennys: A Novel

In Short

Spanning three generations and more than a century and a half, The Three Black Pennys traces the fortunes of a Pennsylvania iron-founding dynasty through three men who inherit the family’s recurring "black" strain—a dark, rebellious, and fiercely independent temperament. From a Colonial-era ironworks to a nineteenth-century industrial empire and finally to the smoky steel mills of the early twentieth century, the novel charts the emotional entanglements, moral crises, and eventual decline of a family whose fate is bound to the raw metal they forge. It remains a striking study of inheritance, temperament, and industrial change.

The Story

The narrative follows three men of the Penny family, each spaced generations apart, who embody a dark, solitary nature that sets them against the conventions of their times.

The saga begins in the mid-eighteenth century with Howat Penny, a moody twenty-five-year-old living at Myrtle Forge. Indifferent to the family's charcoal furnace and iron business, Howat spends his time roaming the untouched wilderness. His quiet detachment is shattered by the arrival of Ludowika Winscombe, the subtle, sophisticated wife of an English official staying at the forge. Howat is overcome by an all-consuming passion for her, and despite her initial resistance and warnings that their connection will ruin the purity of her quiet awakening in the Province, the two yield to a desperate affair. Ludowika ultimately chooses to retreat back to her familiar world and husband, leaving Howat a hardened, solitary man consumed by the fire of an unfulfilled passion.

Decades later, in the 1830s, his descendant Jasper Penny carries the same dark strain. Jasper is a middle-aged, prosperous ironmaster in a rapidly expanding Philadelphia, navigating the transition from old charcoal methods to stone coal and steam power. He leads a divided existence, maintaining a liaison with Essie Scofield, a coarse woman of the city by whom he has an unacknowledged daughter, Eunice. When Jasper meets Susan Brundon, a serene schoolmistress of deep moral conviction, he is struck by an intense desire to transform his life and earn her love. He tries to break from his past, enrolling Eunice in Miss Brundon's school and attempting to sever ties with Essie. But when a violent crime occurs at Essie’s home, Jasper is drawn into a public scandal. Though Susan testifies to clear him of involvement, her rigid sense of duty and moral order forces Jasper to confront the permanent weight of his past mistakes, preventing the seamless happiness he sought.

By the early twentieth century, the last Howat Penny is an elderly, refined bachelor living in the family's historic home near Shadrach Furnace. Detached from the modern world, he spends his days poring over old opera programs and mementos. His quiet existence is disrupted by his vivid, headstrong relative Mariana Jannan, who has fallen in love with James Polder, a steel mill worker and descendant of Jasper’s illegitimate daughter. Polder is a rugged open-hearth foreman, carrying the raw energy and dark temperament of the Pennys. Despite family resistance, social divides, and Polder’s volatile nature, Mariana refuses to abandon him. As the old Howat watches their turbulent courtship unfold against the deafening racket of modern steel production, he realizes that in Mariana and James, the warring elements of spirit and passion that divided his ancestors have finally merged. Shortly after, as he looks out his window at a pattern of wild geese, the elderly Howat quietly passes away, marking the end of the line.

How It Unfolds

The autumn shoot Howat Penny wanders the wooded hills around Shadrach Furnace in early October, carrying a gun with a loose flint and ignoring the low-flying wild geese above. Returning to Myrtle Forge after shooting a small bear, he remains indifferent to his family's charcoal iron business and resists the routine responsibilities expected of his father's heir.

An intoxicating presence The arrival of London guests disrupts the quiet of the forge, bringing the enigmatic Ludowika Winscombe and her husband to the Penny estate. Howat finds his habitual detachment crumbling as he is drawn into an intense, chaotic desire for Ludowika, culminating in secretive encounters among the sumach and charcoal smoke.

A city of shadows Decades later, Jasper Penny navigates the business of iron and rail stock in Philadelphia while secretly maintaining a liaison with Essie Scofield in her Cherry Street home. Wishing to secure a different life for his illegitimate daughter Eunice, he places her under the care of Miss Susan Brundon at her select academy for young ladies.

The crucible of conscience Jasper's growing devotion to Susan forces a reckoning with his past, but his attempts to sever ties with Essie fail when a murder at Essie's home drags Jasper into a public hearing. Though cleared by Susan's truthful testimony, Jasper is left to grapple with the realization that a second wrong cannot undo the first.

Echoes in the opera light In the early 1900s, the aging bachelor Howat Penny retreats into memory, spending his days reviewing old German Opera programs and fading relics of a bygone New York society. His solitary life at the restored stone dwelling near Shadrach Furnace is broken only by the visits of his spirited relative, Mariana Jannan.

The open hearth Mariana insists on bringing the reluctant old Howat into the noisy, incandescent world of the Medial Works, where her lover James Polder operates massive steel-charging machinery. Watching the white-hot metal spill through the furnaces, Howat sees the dark Penny nature re-emerge in Polder, while realizing that Mariana's fierce devotion may finally reconcile the family's long-divided legacy.

The People

• Howat Penny (The First): A solitary, dark-complexioned young man of twenty-five who scorns the family's iron business. He craves independence from life's routine entanglements, but his emotional detachment is completely shattered by an uncontrollable passion for Ludowika Winscombe.
• Ludowika Winscombe: The delicate, worldly wife of an English official. She longs for a rare spiritual release away from court life, but ultimately surrenders to her practical nature and returns to England, leaving Howat behind.
• Jasper Penny: A formidable, middle-aged ironmaster of the nineteenth century who inherits the family's dark temperament. He wants to redeem his past and win the love of a refined woman, but finds himself weighed down by his previous indiscretions and secret responsibilities.
• Susan Brundon: A serene, principled schoolmistress with a firm inner light. She desires absolute moral integrity, refusing to compromise her standards even when her deep affection for Jasper is tested by public scandal.
• Howat Penny (The Last): An elderly, fastidious bachelor living off his memories and opera albums. He wants only quiet order and refinement, but is forced to witness the chaotic, modern romance of the younger generation before his life comes to a close.
• Mariana Jannan: A vivid, independent young woman who sees through social pretenses. She wants a complete, unreserved union with James Polder, standing by him despite his flaws and low social standing.
• James Polder: A tough, hard-drinking steel mill foreman with Penny blood. He struggles against his humble background and inner volatility, but possesses a genuine, steady capability in his industrial craft.

In Its Own Voice

"A pattern of wild geese, flying low and unconcerned above the hills, wavered against the serene, ashen evening."

Howat Penny stands in the mountain road near Shadrach Furnace, holding his gun as twilight settles over the wooded hills.

"He turned his dark, young face toward the transparent, green afterglow; the firm eyebrows drawn up at the temples, sombre eyes set, too, at a slight angle, a straight nose, impatient mouth and projecting chin."

The physical appearance of the first Howat reflects the distinct, restless strain that sets the men of the Penny family apart from their kin.

"Life took the spirit to itself, mysteriously; wove the gold thread into its design of scarlet and earth and green, or else ... a hearth soon cold, the walls of a Furnace crumbled and broken, a ruin covered from memory by growing leafage and grass throbbing with the song of robins..."

In his final moments, the last Howat reflects on how passion, human effort, and time dissolve back into the natural landscape.

What It's Really About

At its heart, the novel explores the inescapable pull of heredity and the friction between human desire and societal constraint. The "black" strain that recurs in the Penny line is not merely a physical trait, but an erratic, unyielding temperament—an inner heat that mirror the iron furnaces driving the family's wealth. The book questions whether an individual can ever truly escape their inherited nature or the consequences of past choices. Against this personal canvas, it charts the transformation of the American landscape, showing how primitive charcoal furnaces in virgin forests gradually give way to massive, mechanical steel mills, matching the hardening and cooling of the family line itself.

Why Read It Today

The Three Black Pennys offers a dense, atmospheric reading experience that appeals to lovers of historical fiction, generational sagas, and rich landscape prose. Hergesheimer writes with a painter's eye for texture and color—from the wine-red sumach of colonial woods to the dazzling, incandescent glare of open-hearth steel machinery.

Readers should be prepared for a deliberate, slow-burning pace. The prose is elaborate and descriptive, often prioritizing atmospheric detail, internal monologue, and subtle shifts in mood over swift plot movements. The novel also reflects the social hierarchies and Period attitudes of the eras it portrays, depicting stark divides between landed families and industrial laborers.

What remains with the reader is the striking contrast between human impermanence and the enduring raw materials of the earth. As the old furnaces crumble under encroaching weeds and the heavy iron trade evolves into automated steel manufacture, the novel captures a haunting sense of time slipping away, leaving behind only the quiet landscape and the steady flight of wild geese overhead.