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Penelope (Kent, Van Princin, Stout) was born about 1622 in The Netherlands and died about 1732. Alternate death date 1725 in Find a Grave.
Her maiden name essentially is uncertain and has been cited as Kent with the suggestion she had married a John Kent who came to New Amsterdam with her, or van Princin/van Princes, daughter of the Baron Van Princin/Van Princis,[1] or Thompson. For the purpose of consistent merging in this profile, the LNAB of Kent will be used since most sources in the following records of her marriage to Richard Stout use Van Princis/Van Princin. The Thomson maiden name is an Ancestry reference S3 and names her as Thomson with her Stout children.
1643 -- Penelope and her first husband sailed from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam. Their ship foundered and was attacked by the natives. Husband assumed killed. After hiding and surviving on her own, Penelope was taken in by the Navesink tribe of Leni Lenapi, who later returned her to the Dutch at New Amsterdam. The following source discusses and cites varied accounts of this story which includes the account by Mrs. Henry (Theresa) Seabrook, granddaughter of Helena Huff that John Stout, her grandfather had felt her wounds and only two hands between her and Penelope. Stillwell cites his sources for all this information and addresses some conflicts of said information e. g. birth year of Penelope and her maiden and/or first marriage name.[2]
1645--After their marriage Richard Stout and Penelope settled at Gravesend, Long Island when he was named as one of the patentees for the settlement of Gravesend December 19 1645.[3] [4][5][6] [7] [8]
Another note of interest is that Penelope Princis was a witness in a slander trial in Gravesend September 12 1648. One note on the account says that the custom that married Dutch women continued to use their previous name. The record is typed in the article.[9] However, the account is the Rights of land, age of Mary in them, marriage of older brother John as found in both Stillwell's and Street's account of their ages at the time the family moved to Middleton, Monmouth County, New Jersey as follows.
December 1663-The plans to leave crowded Gravesend and accept that the English would acquire New Amsterdam. With the proclamation of Richard Nicolls, successor to Governor Stuyvesant, concessions were given and Richard Stout was one of the twelve patentees. The Rights of Lands names Richard, his wife and children and some of their spouses.
January 1665-Richard and Penelope Stout moved from Gravesend to what became Middletown Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey. The Rights of Lands names Richard, his wife and children and some of their spouses. [10][11]
Children of Richard and Penelope Kent/VanPrincin Stout were:[12]
Penelope Stout died after 23 October 1705, when Richard Stout's will was proven. [18]No further record of her exists.
In 2017, the Asbury Park Press reported that Penelope Stout's place of burial remains unknown, but is thought to be somewhere in Middletown Township. [19]
The story of Penelope’s shipwreck and encounter with the Indians is very similar to the story recounted about her mother on her profile. From reading various accounts, it is possibly a true account for Penelope the daughter, embellished greatly over time, with no proof.
"Some time during the seventeenth century, probably about 1680 or '90, a young couple just married in Holland, embarked on a vessel bound for America. The voyage was prosperous until they were nearing the port of New Amsterdam, now the city of New York. The vessel was wrecked off what is now the coast of New Jersey, and nearly all on board drowned. The young couple of Hollanders, escaped drowning and with a small number of the passengers and crew succeeded in reaching the shore. Upon landing they were attacked by Indians, who lay in ambush awaiting their arrival. The whole party were tomahawked, scalped and otherwise mutilated, and left for dead. All were dead except the wife, from Holland."
Note: The name of her husband is not known, neither is her own family name, nothing but her first or given name, Penelope; a name that has stood for more than twenty-five centuries, in tradition and literature, as the highest ideal of a true and loyal wife.After her recovery, she became acquainted with and married an Englishman by the name of Richard Stout. They then went over into New Jersey, made themselves a home and raised a family of twelve sons. [20][21]
Penelope and Richard could not have married much before 1645, in Gravesend. She was born in 1622, and supposedly had been married already, despite one source quoted here.
Several sources claim Penelope was the first white woman to live in Middletown in about 1665. Obviously this is not true.
It is also claimed that they started the Baptist Church in Monmouth County. This source verifies he was in Monmouth in 1664, was a Patentee and a founder of the first Baptist Church in New Jersey. this issue. Richard Stout was one of the twelve patentees that came from Gravesend, New York to Monmouth County, New Jersey , was living there 1664 with four other families, a Patentee and was one of the founders of the first Baptist Church in New Jersey.[22]
Thomas H. Streets claims the same narrative but says the dates may be off by as much as twenty years. As to both Penelope and Richard’s ages, Streets says their longevity has been much exaggerated. Documents are being sought for her birth and death. If she was born in 1602 she would have been forty-two when John, their first child was born, and 67 when Benjamin, their last child was born. We know that in 1664 when the Patentees were named in 1664 their son John received a lot and had to be an adult. None of the other children were eligible, i e, all under age in 1664.
The following is a brief history of what was called Middletown, New Jersey: Middletown was settled by English who migrated from western Long Island and New England, beginning at the 1665 proclamation of the Monmouth Patent by royal governor Richard Nicholls. This grant, issued to 12 Britons, contained several provisions governing settlement. The new settlers were required to secure the land from the local Indians, a population that was, in time, displaced. Additional people were required to settle here in order to foster permanence. Three “villages” were established near-simultaneously, including the short-lived Portland Point located near Atlantic Highlands, Shrewsbury, south of the Navesink River, and the village of Middletown, which was, in a rough geographic sense, in the “middle” of the aforementioned. Portland Point faltered, but organized community life thrived at Middletown village and Shrewsbury; they were known informally as the Two Towns of the Navesink. Formal records in Middletown began in 1667 with The First Town Book in Middletown; it is arguably the County’s most extraordinary extant document and is now in the collection of the Monmouth County Historical Association. The Town Book was published in Volume II of John Stillwell’s Historical and Genealogical Miscellany[23]
Stout or Stouce, Richard, one of the first settlers of Gravesend in 1643, and allotted plantation-lot No. 18 in 1646, as per town rec; d. about 1688. He also bought Apl. 5, 1661, plantation-lot No. 26 of Edward Griffen. With a number of his neighbors he left Gravesend and settled at Middletown, Monmouth Co., N. J., of which place he was one of the patentees or original purchasers of the Indians, as per p. 73 of Vol. I. of Raum's N. J. There is a story, founded on tradition, on p. 76, etc., of said Vol., of the shipwreck of a Dutch ship on Sandy Hook; of the crew and passengers leaving a sick young Dutchman and his wife there while they went for relief; of the Indians tomahawking the man, mangling the wife and leaving her for dead; of her recovering and crawling into a hollow log and subsisting for several days on berries, and then being discovered and taken prisoner and her life preserved by an old Indian, ransomed by the Dutch of N. Y., where she married Richard Stout, being at the time in her 22nd year and he in his 40th. They settled at Middletown, where the old Indian often visited her, and on one occasion, by informing her of a plot to massacre the whites, put them on their guard and saved the settlement from destruction. This woman, whose maiden name was Penelope Van Prince, lived to the age of 110 years, her posterity numbering 502 at the time of her death. The compiler gives this tradition as he finds it, having little faith therein. Issue (per Rev. G. C. Schenck):—John; Richard; Jonathan; Peter; James; Benjamin; David; Deliverance; Sarah; and Penelope, whose descendants are numerous in N. J. Made his mark to documents. [24]
Another record (?) was found: Penelope Van Princis Birth Year: 1602 Death Year: 1712 This may be her supposed mother.[25]
This profile previously listed her Current Last Name as Unknown. Further research is needed on the names she used in her lifetime (along with more/better sources in general).
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K > Kent | S > Stout > Penelope (Kent) Stout
Categories: English of Colonial Long Island | Netherlands Project Needs Birth | Netherlands Project Needs More Records | Kings County, New York | Monmouth County, New Jersey | New Jersey Founders | New Jersey, Notables | New Netherland Settlers | New Netherland Project-Managed | New Netherland Settlers Project Needs LNAB | Notables
This profile currently mistakes legend for fact. There are only 2 known primary sources for Penelope. #1 - On 12 September 1648, she testified as “Penelope Prince” in a Gravesend, New Netherland, slander trial.[1] Although Gravesend was an English settlement, New Netherland records generally follow the Dutch practice of referring to women by their surnames at birth. #2 - On 26 February 1679-80, “Richard and Penelope Stout” sold an orchard, acreage, house, and barn for £66-5-3.” [2]
No primary source documents Prince’s marriage to anyone other than Stout. The claim that she was married when she emigrated is based on an old, continually evolving legend, but no primary sources have been found to verify it: no birth, marriage, or emigration records and no record of a shipwreck (or stranding) that could plausibly fit Prince’s known residence in Gravesend by 1648. Estimates of her children's ages based on a 1675 NJ land claim show she was in New Netherland in 1643-4, when she married Stout. [3]
The names Van Princes and Kent come from various versions of the Stout legend, not historical documents. The belief that Penelope was born "Van Prince" or "Van Princes" can be traced to an undocumented pamphlet by Morgan Edwards published in 1792. He quotes a letter from Rev. Oliver Hart of Hopewell, NJ, who reports the tale as told by third- and fourth-generation Stouts without reference to any historical records. Indeed, Hart’s dates are off by decades, beginning with his claim that Prince emigrated to New Netherland in 1620, four years before the colony was founded. He’s also the sole source of the claim that she died at 110.
The name "Kent" was first associated with Penelope by William Montgomery Clemens in his 1926 American Marriages before 1699.[4] He claims she was the daughter of a "Kent or Lent" and the widow of a "Von Printzen." No corresponding document has been discovered, and scholars have concluded that the entry is fictitious in part because Clemens puts the Stouts’ marriage in Gravesend in 1634-5, more than a decade before it was founded.[5]
Herald F. Stout rejects 1634-5 as a plausible date of marriage in his 1951 Stout and Other Families, but he tentatively accepts Clemens' other claims, hypothesizing that Penelope was born, "presumably in Amsterdam, Holland, perhaps of dissenting English parents, which would account for her reported maiden name of Kent or Lent."[6] In 1999, Carole Chandler Waldrup treats "Kent" as a first name and identifies the legend's murdered husband as "Kent Van Prinicis" in her Colonial Women: 23 Europeans Who Helped Build a Nation [7]. Evelyn Ogden retains the surnames given by Clemens, but reverses their roles in her 2017 "biographical sketch" of "Penelope Van Princis" for the Descendants of the Founders of New Jersey.[8] In her account, Penelope is the Amsterdam-born daughter of “Baron VanPrincis (a.k.a. Van Prinzen)” and the wife of "John Kent." Like Clemens, Ogden and Waldrup fail to provide historical evidence for their claims. Wikitree currently conflates Kent and Van Prinzen into a single figure, John (Kent) Van Prinzen.
Penelope's story has been told about twenty different ways since it was first published in 1765 with irreconcilable conflicts in dates, places, names, and events. The absence of primary sources makes it impossible to determine which--if any--of the details are accurate. The former director of the Monmouth County Historical Commission told the Asbury Park Press in November 2017, "I cannot imagine any way of picking the fact from the tall tale as the presentation of the story seems so fanciful." [9]
Based on primary sources, I propose the following changes: Kent of Amsterdam should be detached from Penelope's record. His profile should be corrected to remove "van Prinzen" from his name. Richard Stout should be identified as her only known husband.
Penelope's name should be given as it appears in historical records (Penelope Prince Stout). Her birthplace is unknown. Her year of birth is widely estimated to be about 1622. Her place and year of death are unknown. She died after 23 October 1705 when Richard Stout's will was proven. The claim that she lived to be 110 appears only in Hart's undocumented 1792 letter, which is characterized by exaggeration and misdates historical events by decades.
1. A.P. Stockwell and William H. Stillwell (1884), History of Gravesend and Coney Island, New York, p. 12. [1]
2. Edwin Salter (1890), A History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, pp. liv. [2]
3. John E. Stillwell (1916), Historical and Genealogical Miscellany, Early Settlers of New Jersey and their Descendants, p 295+. [3]
4. William Montgomery Clemens (1926), American Marriages before 1699, p. 134. [4]
5. Virginie Adane (2009), The Penelope Stout Story: Evolution of a New Netherland Narrative, Hal Open Archive document, footnote 21. [5]
6. Herald F. Stout (1951), Stout and Allied Famlies, p. xix. [6]
7. Carole Chandler Waldrup (1999), Colonial Women: 23 Europeans Who Helped Build a Nation, Google Books, p. 75. [7]
8. Evelyn Ogden (2017), "Penelope Van Princis (Kent, Stout)," Descendants of the Founders of New Jersey. [8]
9. Jerry Carino (2017), "The Bayshore Legend of Penelope Stout." Asbury Park Press, 20 November 2017. [9]
Additional sources on the Stout legend:
edited by Jill Piggott
These are Penelope's dates, as given in 1792 by Rev. Oliver Hart. The dates are obviously wrong. He claimed she emigrated to New Netherland in 1620. The colony wasn't founded until 1624. Moreover, if Penelope were born in 1602, she was having children until "she was near, if not over, the age of 60" (Stillwell, p 305).
See John E. Stillwell, "Stout of Monmouth County" in Historical and genealogical miscellany: data relating to the settlement and settlers of New York and New Jersey (1916): 295-306. [1]
edited by Jill Piggott
Greets from the Netherlands,
Bea :)
I have removed this person as a wife of Richard Stout. Her LNAB has been questioned by others and most all sources say Van Princin with alternate spellings of Princin was her married name. Please check multiple sources for her. Note that there is a back up that the shipwreck story was confirmed when the old Indian came to warn her about the raid which is documented Samuel Smith. "The history of the colony of Nova-Caesaria, or New Jersey : containing, an account of its first settlement, progressive improvements, the original and present constitution, and other events, to the year 1721". Trenton, N. J. W. S. Sharp:1877?. Pages 66-67. https://archive.org/stream/historyofcolonyo00smituoft#page/66/mode/2up ↑ John Stillwell], 1916, pages 298 http://archive.org/stream/historicalgeneal04stil#page/298/mode/1up [edit]
I have changed her LNAB to fit with common understanding, and hope that you will reconsider the proposed merge. I believe it is not in Wikitree's interests to leave a single profile floating in cyberspace. I will be orphaning the profile as I have no stake in her, having created the profile in error, and trust that whatever outcome you choose will be for the best.
Regards, Josephine
Please continue now with the merge to concur with one profile per person.
Thanks for you help, Sharon
Does anyone have an objection to merging this profile into the profile of the supposed daughter Penelope (Kent) Stout (abt.1622-abt.1732)?
edited by Ellen Smith
They have her first husband as John Kent, and four years later, Richard Eli Stout Sr.
Any chance that more inline referencing could be done?
Also, the references can be hard coded so that we don't have to look at long and ugly URLs. I might be able to contribute some time to this one, but some of the related profiles lack sourcing altogether, and I'm focusing on them, first.
https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/s/t/o/William-R-Stout/GENE9-0002.html
(scroll down or do a search for the comments of Linda Stout Deak)
There is some new (to me) analysis of the sail date and ship name - if correct, it would shift the date(s) of the arrival, marriage, & children's births.