Penelope Kent VanPrincis Stout history

Contributed By

carmajunemorris1

Taken from the "All About Stout" newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 2 - June 2014, www.StoutConnection.org.

This is the history of the g.g.g.g.g.grandmother of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States.

According to Samuel Smith��s “History of New Jersey”, written in 1766, to a woman must go the credit of bringing most of the permanent white settlers to Middletown. Noted writer I.F. Watrous points out that Middletown was settled by the best blood on New England and the Old World. It happened this way:

New Amsterdam, later called New York, was in possession of the Dutch. A ship from Holland in about 1642, bringing passengers to America, was shipwrecked of(sic) Sandy Hook. The company had intended to land at New Amsterdam, 100 miles to the North, but violent storms blew them off course. Among the passengers safely reaching the shore was a young bride, Penelope Kent VanPrincis. Her husband was so badly injured that he was unable to flee overland to safety. Indian signs looked bad and the survivors knew they must move on very fast. Penelope paid no heed to the pleas of her fellow passengers that it was dangerous for a woman to stay and face the perils of falling into the hands of hostile Indians. They argued that he’d never survive anyway and she’d be killed if she remained. Ignoring all this, she stayed behind.

Their fears were not unfounded. They had not been long in the place when a band of red men, probably of the Novesink tribe, came upon her and her husband. First they slew the helpless man, and then left her so mangled from tomahawk wounds that they considered her dead. They were stripped of their clothes and then abandoned. But Penelope was not killed. When she regained consciousness, she crawled into a nearby hollow tree, and there she stayed, depending for food chiefly upon the fungus excrescences and gum which grew outside of the tree. Penelope was not able to search for berries or other food, as her skull was fractured where they scalped her, her left shoulder was hacked and she could never use one arm completely. She was also cut across the abdomen so a part of her intestines were exposed, which she kept in place with her hand across her stomach; she continued in this situation for several days.

One morning while dragging her wounded body along the ground in search of water, she saw a deer running by with two arrows in its side. Soon two tall Indians of the Lenni Lenape Tribe, (a part of the Delawares) appeared. Penelope prayed they would end her life and put her out of her extreme misery; the young one came towards her with his tomahawk raised; but the other, an elderly man, prevented him. They were much astonished at finding a white woman and marveled at her endurance and courage through unspeakable hardships. The older Indian wrapped his matchcoat about Penelope, places her over his shoulder, and carried her to their camp, near what is now Middletown, N.J.

There she was given food and drink, her wounds were sewn up with fishbone needles and vegetable fibre and she was dressed in Indian fashion. She stayed with the Indians; working, learning their language, and their ways for some time. Later, her fellow passengers, now safely in New Amsterdam, heard of a woman who had been rescued by Indians. Deciding it must be Penelope, they sent back for her, and located her. She was comfortable in her own wigwam with plenty to eat and drink, and good Indian clothes to wear.

A year or two later in New Amsterdam, Penelope met and married an Englishman named Richard Stout. Richard, who was born in Notinghamsire, had left England because of his father, who interfered with his love affairs, disapproving of a young woman his parents considered socially inferior. This drove Richard to engage on a British Man of War ship for seven years, after which he received his discharge at New Amsterdam. According to known history, he was the first Stout to come to America, and was instrumental in settling Gravesend, long Island, under the direction of Lady Deborah Moody. He was head officer of Gravesend. Penelope was now in hter 22nd year, and he in his 40th. The year was 1644. Sometime later, she induced her husband to sail across the bay to the future site of Middletown and settle near thos who had saved her life. Many of Richard Stout’s friends thereupon visited the happy couple, and took up residence there also. This was a land that was frequented by deer, bobcats, wolves, black bear and a host of other animals, and a land of forestry, swamps and large streams. Richard Stout built his home, made their furniture, cleared the land, built fences, plowed the fields, raised animals and grains for the family’s table, hunted game and fished for food. Penelope’s responsibility was feeding the family, making the family clothes, soap and candles, keeping the house and family and their clothes clean, serving as the family doctor and nurse, taking care of the children, feeding the family and maintaining a fire for cooking and heat in the winter. Even in the hot summer months, a fire had to be kept, as there were not matches then. She also worked alongside her husband in clearing the land. The homes of that day were log huts with one or two glass windows and 7” X 9” panes, four to a window. The chinks in the logs were stopped with mud. The chimneys generally smoked and let in rain and snow. About the only reading materials were the scriptures, which Penelope taught to her family.

The old Indian who saved Penelope’s life lived in an old Indian camp not far from her home. He whom Penelope called her Indian Father, came often to visit the Stouts and eat at their table. He became a close friend. One day he came, but would not eat with them. Finally Penelope got him aside to see what the matter was. At the risk of his own life, he had come to warn her that his tribe was coming that night to destroy their homes and kill all the people. Mrs. Stout, now with two children, beseeched her friend to quiet the uprising, and assure the hostile Indians of the white man’s good intentions. This, he explained, he could not do, but showed her how to escape to New Amsterdam with her children, he having hid a canoe and paddles nearby for her use. Farmer Stout got the other men in the village of Middletown to send their wives and children with Penelope. Then he, with the rest of the men, awaited the approach of the Indians at midnight, who were expecting to take the whites by surprise. The white men went boldly with funs and contended with them. So successfully did they defend themselves, that according to Frank R. Stockton in his “Stories of New Jersey,” a league of peace was called, in which Stout and Company agreed to buy the land on which they had built their town. An alliance was made of mutual protection and assistance. This compact was faithfully observed from that time on. According to Robert F. Van Benthuysen, Director of Monmouth College, this compact included all of what is now the County of Monmouth, New jersey’s largest county, and large parts of two other counties. The trade for the land required Stout and Company giving the Indians 200 fathom (each fathom is 6 feet) of seaswamp, one gun, five coats, two other items of wearing apparel, 12 pounds of tobacco and one anker of wine. (The deal was such a good one that it made the $24.00 paid for Manhattan Island an expensive land trade.)

Middletown grew and flourished, and among those who flourished most were the Stouts, so remarkable were they in their large families, many descendants of which still live in this old village. According to Morgan Edwards in his book, “A History of the Baptists,” written in 1792, there were more than half the inhabitants of the area of over 800, according to Baptist Church records, that were Stout names or t hose who had changed their name in marriage, because of the tradition of large families among the Stouts. The first Baptist Church in New Jersey was established at the hom of their son, Jonathan, in 1688. It became the Mother Church of New Jersey.

Richard died in 1705 at the age of 100. Penelope lived to the old age of 110 years, a remarkable feat in itself, considering in the 1600’s the lifespan was 40 years of age. Merely to survive was an achievement. Penelope bore Richard seven sons and three daughters that lived to maturity. They each had large families. There were also at least two children that died young. Before her death in 1732, Penelope saw her offspring multiply to 502 souls in the 88 years since her marriage to Richard Stout. According to Robert Van Benthuysen of Monmouth College, “New jersey has given the nation two great heroines. Mary Hays McCauley, better known as ‘Molly Pitcher’, she was the heroine of the Battle of Monmouth. She brought water to the thirsty troops on that hot June day in 1778, and later took over at the cannon when her husband was wounded. The other heroine is Penelope Stout, ’she who was a good as dead’, and yet lived to save her community, pioneering the first settlement in East New Jersey, and raised a large posterity. She was a most extraordinary woman of the colonial period; a woman with an indomitable will to live, loyal to her first husband. It would have been very easy for her to have abandoned him on the beach at Sandy Hook. She was a staunch supporter of her second husband, Richard Stout. The history of New Jersey, and I’ll interject, the nation,” Robert Von Benthuysen continued, “would not be complete without the Penelope Stout story. If Penelope Stout were alive today, she would win the title, ‘mother of the year,’ hands down,” Robert wrote.

Contributed by Dell C. Stout to the tenth All About Stout Newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 2 – June 2014