The Legend of Penelope – Mother of the Stouts

Penelope Van Princis Stout Commemorative Coin (front) depicting the scene of Penelope's first rescue by an old Indian Chief after surviving a shipwreck and the ensuing attack on the beach by the indigenous inhabitants after being abandoned by their fellow shipmates.

By Dave

Sep 23, 2020

Penelope VanPrincis Stout Commemorative Coin (back) depicting the scene of Penelope’s second rescue by an old indian chief after surviving her first series of ordeals, and finally “rescued” to Fort Amsterdam, Penelope and her new husband return to Sandy Hook to build a home. Here the old indian chief warns Penelope to escape a planned attack.

The coin image above, as well as the one at the top of this page, appear to be the front and back images of the same coin. They are shown (with captions) on the Wikipedia page for ‘Penelope Stout.’ No information is given about the source of the coin.

This summary of the Penelope legend was printed by Lewis E. Stout on the inside front cover of his 1931 genealogy booklet A Branch of the Stout Tree. (click to enlarge)

Genealogy from Richard and Penelope to Mildred Stout

This is the genealogy given in A Branch of the Stout Tree, originally printed by Lewis Stout.

  1. Richard (1615-1705) and Penelope (1622 – 1732) Stout
  2. Peter (1646-1703) and Mary Stout
  3. John Stout
  4. Samuel and Margaret Stout
  5. Peter (1715) and Margaret (1716-1799) Stout
  6. Peter (1754-1832) and Hannah (1756-1833) Stout
  7. John (1789-1866) and Elizabeth (1789-1846) Stout
  8. Silas (1816-1887) and Martha (1819-1891) Stout
  9. Lewis (1861-1935) and Anna (1865-1924) Stout
  10. Mildred Stout (1903-1985) and Harold Votaw (1903-1963)

 

My grandmother’s name at her birth was Mildred Stout. The Stout family was well-established in the Quaker church, and there were many of them. This page tells the story of the beginnings of the Stout family in America, according to tradition. Many versions of the story are available; three are on this page.

Wikipedia’s page on “Penelope Stout” gives her name and dates as follows: Penelope Van Princis Kent Stout (1622 – 1732) of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Was the first female white settler of Monmouth County, New Jersey. According to History of the Baptists (cited in Stout and Allied Families by H.F. Stout) she lived to the age of 110.

Here is the legend, as told by Wikipedia:

In 1643 Penelope and her husband took a ship from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam. With their ship foundering, she and her husband, John Kent, and several others made land at Sandy Hook. Her husband was not able to travel due to illness and she remained with him. After the couple were abandoned on shore by the other passengers looking for safety and shelter, she and her husband were attacked by natives and her husband was killed. She was gravely injured and left for dead. She took shelter in a hollow tree until she made herself known to the Navesink tribe of Leni Lenapi. They bound up her wounds, and when she was well enough to travel she was released to the Dutch at New Amsterdam (now New York City). There in 1644 at the age of 22, she married Richard Stout (1615 – 1705), son of John Stout (1584 – 1620) and Elizabeth Bee (1591 – 1685) of Nottinghamshire, England. They had a large family (7 sons and 4 daughters) mostly born at Gravesend in the current area of Coney Island, Brooklyn. They moved to Middletown Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey around 1665. This was where the Leni Lenapi who had earlier helped her were from, and they were still living there when the Stouts arrived.

It is said that Penelope had 502 direct descendants when she died at the age of 110.

The surnames for Penelope are quite variable in several references; Van Princis, Princis, Prince, Princes, Princess, Van Prinzen, Prinzen, Kent. The Gravesend Town Record as written by Englishmen at the time of a trial in September 1648 name the defendant as ‘Penelope Prince’. However, this does not necessarily mean that she had not yet married Richard Stout, as married Dutch women in that time period traditionally kept and used their maiden names. In honor of her being a pioneer in Middletown, NJ, ‘Penelope Lane’ off of Kings Highway is named after her.

In 1931 my great grandfather, Lewis E. Stout, published a small booklet entitled A Branch of the Stout Tree. This booklet traces the genealogy of Lewis’ branch of the family. On the inside of the front cover, Lewis wrote a summary of the Penelope legend, including a part of it that was left out of the Wikipedia version: how Penelope made sure that her grandson would pass down the story. This summary is pictured at left.

A long version of the story was preserved by Lewis and passed down to me in the archives that I received from my grandmother. It was written by Therese W. Seabrook who (presumably) was born a Stout. It is pictured below and I hope it is readable.

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