Penelope Prince, a runaway from Kent Island, Maryland?

The text below is a letter written by Nora James (please identify yourself) to the website WeRelate, where people work to "build a unified family tree containing the best information from all contributors." See  http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person_talk:Penelope_Kent_(1)

"After many years (approximately 10) of obsessive research about the identity of the person known in legend as Penelope Van Princis/Van Princess/Kent and Thomson before deciding that I needed to get on with actual life on this here Earth, it is my strong opinion that her name was Penelope Prince; that she was English, that she came to Kent Island (note, "Kent" Island) in the Chesapeake under indenture by Robert Vaughan (note the similarily in pronunciation to the "Van" in one version of the legends about her; that she was the same Penelope Prince whom Robert Vaughan testified in court records in about 1656 and who ran away from her indenture in 1646-7 or so during the time of troubles on Kent Island; that she was working out her indenture in the service of William Cox and his wife Frances on Kent Island and that they lived near Richard Thompson/Thomson (note the "Thompson/Thomson" in some versions of her name) on Kent Island who was involved in a big old major way in the "Time of Troubles" that led to her running away; that another version of her surname that pops up in some versions is "Lent" and there was a man named "Lent" living on Kent Island and who figured in that "Time of Troubles." It is also very possible (though by no means proven) that she was the Penelope Prince who was born in 1629 in Stepney and baptized at St. Dunstan's.

"Penelope Prince ran away from Kent Island in 1646-7 (according to the testimony of Robert Vaughan); the Penelope who marries Richard Stout appears in the historical record as "Penelope Prince" in 1648 on Gravesend in Long Island. It is an educated guess on my part, and based on extraordinarily strong circumstantial evidence contained in the legends about her, that the Penelope Prince who married Richard Stout is the same person who was the Penelope Prince living on Kent Island from 1644-6.

"Take this and run with it or ignore it, I don't much care at this point, but anyone who wants to see this for themselves can look at Filby's at the entry for Penelope Prince which references the court testimony of Robert Vaughan in 1656, and read about the history of Kent Island during the time of troubles with William Claiborne, and read the various versions of the legends of Penelope Van Princess in all of those old histories of New Jersey, and consider how it is that legends take shape over time and names become misunderstood, and begin to understand how it might be that those who wrote down the stories of Penelope Prince many years after her death might have misunderstood how a young English girl on "Kent" Island in the 1640's, who was brought to the island by Robert "Vaughan," and who ran away during a war in which her neighbor Richard "Thompson" figured prominently as did her neighbor "_____ Lent," and might have merged all of these names into hers in print, making it almost impossible to determine her identity without careful consideration.

"At another time I will try to explain all of this and source it better, including why I believe there is a strong chance that she was the same Penelope Prince born in England, but at least for now I offer you Filby's for Penelope Prince and the Gravesend Town Records for someone of the same name. And for whatever it's worth, the records of St. Dunstan's in the East where Penelope Prince was baptized in 1629, the child of Mary Kilburn and Lawrence Prince."

unsigned User:Norajames
posted at WeRelate by administrator Jennifer JBS66 19 April 2011

On another page http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Penelope_Prince_(2) of the same website is written:

"Penelope Prince was born in Stepney, in what is now the east end of London, in 1629. Her mother, Mary Kilburn, was a widow when she married Lawrence Prince, a tailor, at St. Dunstan's in the East on 17 May 1629. Penelope was baptized at St. Dunstan's three months later, on 20 Sep 1629. Lawrence died in 1630 and was buried at St. Dunstan's in February of that year. See the records of St. Dunstan's church for the records of all of these, which can be viewed on microfilm at a Family History Center....

"Penelope Prince was an indentured servant at home of William and Frances Cox on Kent Island from 1644 to 1646. The Coxes had a tobacco plantation on Kent Island, and two small children. Penelope ran away during the "time of troubles" on that island, in 1646. See Filby's for the reference to a record of a court proceeding in 1656 wherein Robert Vaughan testifies that Penelope ran away in that year. "

This is Jim writing now. I don't know what to make of this but if an indentured servant were fleeing Kent Island in 1646-7, the logical path would be northeast to the Swedish settlement of Fort Christina (now Wilmington, DE) on the Delaware River, about 40 miles as the crow flies. The economies of both Maryland and Virginia were built on indentured servitude at that time and the authorities in those colonies were sure to enforce the law by returning runaways to the master. New Sweden was a foreign country and, as far as I know, didn't have indentured servants.

I am intrigued because of Nicholas Stillwell, another ancestor of mine. Virginia Protestants settled Kent Island in Cheaspeake Bay, east of Annapolis, and did not take kindly to their king re-assigning their home to Catholic Maryland in the 1630s . The political squabbles and armed assaults led by William Claiborne resulted in Nicholas Stillwell (among others) being banished from both Maryland and Virginia. Stillwell settled in Manhattan and joined the Gravesend group in the original settlement of 1643, did not rejoin in 1645 resettlement but purchased a lot in 1648 and was elected magitrate in 1649.

In my novel Nicholas Stillwell and his wife are major characters who help Penelope.

If anyone has more to contribute to this subject, please let me know.

Penelope's Scar

In his 1916 book Historical and Genealogical Miscellany, Early Settlers of New Jersey and their Descendants, John Stillwell quotes Therese Walling Seabrook as follows:

"My grandmother, Helena Huff, told me how her grandfather, John Stout, had felt the wounds of Penelope Stout, and that he blushed like a school boy. She wished the knowledge of the Indian assault transmitted to her posterity and it has been done, for there are but two hands between Penelope and me."

The Monmouth County Historical Library in Freehold NJ has a large file of Seabrook family documents donated by Vera Conover, granddaughter of Therese Walling Seabrook. Here are two-—a genealogy and a story—discovered by Kathleen Mirabella of Clarksburg, NJ.

According to Mrs. Seabrook, her genealogy is as follows [with some dates and spouses added by me for clarification]:

John Stout

Richard Stout of Nottingham, Eng. + Penelope van Prince of Holland
John Stout [-1724] + [Elizabeth Crawford]
Richard Stout [1678-1749/50] + [Ester Tilton]
John Stout [1701-1782] + Margaret [Taylor]
Helena Stout [1734- ] + John William Hoff
Helena Hoff (1771-1849) + Daniel I. Walling
Leonard Walling (1793- ) + Catherine Aumack
Therese Walling (1821-1899] + Henry Seabrook
Annie Longstreet Seabrook (1852-1943] + William Hubbard Conover
Vera Conover [1896-1977]

Before I begin the story, let me explain that Ethel Stout, mentioned below, was born in 1882, started a temperance newspaper, The Midget, when she was eight years old in Delaware, Ohio but lived in Melbourne, Florida in 1892. Her father, a newspaperman, agreed to print her journal if she set the type. Therefore, Mrs. Seabrook, a strong supporter of the The Women's Christian Temperance Union, wrote this account in 1890-92.

Also of note, this is the earliest record I have found of Kent or Lent as a last name for Penelope. However, Mrs. Seabrook offers the maiden name as Penelope van Prince with the last name of Kent or Lent belonging to her first husband, not to her father. [Personally I think these should be flip-flopped to agree with the Gravesend Town Records of 1648.]

Vera Conover typed her grandmother’s story (which differs somewhat from the account published 20 or so years later by Stillwell), ending with “This was copied from a very yellowed, single sheet of printing. 7-1-1961-vc”  With more clues from Kathleen Mirabella, I tracked down a copy of the original printed sheet, which appears to be Ethel Stout’s newspaper, at the Leatherby Libraries of Chapman University, in Orange, CA (thanks to Rand Boyd, librarian, for a copy)

THE MOTHER OF THE STOUTS

_______________________________________________________________________
Mrs. Therese W. Seabrook, of Keyport, New Jersey, prepared the following historical sketch for Ethel Stout, wee editor of THE MIDGET, of Delaware, Ohio. Mrs. Seabrook is doubtless the best authority on the continent for the early history of the Stout family, which she estimates now numbers 10,000, in America. The narrative, so full of interest to those who bear the name, is published by, and sent out with the compliments of the little editor and her parents.
_______________________________________________________________________

    Penelope Van Prince was a native of Holland—married there and sailed for the “New World” with her husband, whose name was Kent or Lent, I have really forgotten the husband’s name, and as he was nothing to us, it matters little. As they approached the end of their voyage, a storm arose which cast the vessel upon the beach somewhere between Long Branch and Sandy Hook, I think it was at the Highlands as she was taken to Middletown, or near it and that is the nearest those points. The passengers and crew who were not drowned were said to have been murdered by the Indians, — at least Penelope was the only one known to have survived. An Indian who went to the shore in the early morning after the storm, was attracted by the barking of his dog, to a “clump of bushes,” under which he discovered a naked woman, apparently dead.

    He walked backward to her side [for modesty?] and threw his blanket over her, and discovering that there was life still there, carried her to his wigwam.

    Her abdomen was cut open so that the bowels protruded. “He washed and sewed up the wound, using for thread the inside bark ‘withes,’ of a tree, and fishbones for needles.” She remained here until she was entirely recovered, the only white person, so far as is known in this (Monmouth) Co. —perhaps many months. The Indian then took her in his canoe to New Amsterdam (now New York city) and sold her to the Dutch. She met Richard, son of John Stout, of Nottinghamshire, England, whom she afterwards married. He had wished to marry some girl in Eng. whom his father did not consider his equal, and in anger had enlisted on a man-of-war ship, and the seven years of service expiring while the vessel was in New Amsterdam he remained there. After his marriage to Penelope, they went to Gravesend, L. Island, to live, but Mrs. Stout sighed for a return to the Indian home in New Jersey, but not until she had two or three children was she able to come. Then she induced four other heads of families to come with her to this place. Their names were Hartshorne, Browne [sic Bowne], Lawrence and Groves. These five families purchased of the Indians immense tracts of land. Bartown is built on a part of the land owned by Andrew Browne [sic].

    The properties owned by the Stouts had the old village of Middletown on it and an extensive farming country known as Pleasant Valley. It was all known as Middletown for many years.

    Some say that these five white families came here in 1648 but I am inclined to think it was 1648 when the wreck occurred. Two or three years ago the Baptist Church of Middletown celebrated its bicentennial, and as Richard Sr. and Richard Jr. were among its constituent members, I think they made their permanent settlement in the latter part of the decade 1650— nearly 1660. What I give here is tradition— history begins in 1667 when twelve men obtained a grant from Gov. Nichols. My tradition has come through only two persons from Penelope, herself, and I think it more correct than much that is told. The second son, Richard, had a son, John, who was therefore grandson of Penelope. When his grandmother was about 85 years old, he took her on his horse to visit one of her children and when he helped her to alight she insisted upon his putting his hand through the pocket hole of her garment to feel the seam which the Indian sewed up--he was young and bashful but she said, “Johnny, you can tell it to your grandchildren because you will know it’s true, and they can tell it to their grandchildren.” My grandmother was one of the grandchildren to whom he told the story, and when she told it to me, she would say “and so I tell it to you just as she said”; with an air of having descended from a prophetess. I am telling it to you in the language, chiefly, in which I heard it.
                                                                                                    Therese W. Seabrook