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.

Was Penelope Scalped?

The earliest reference I’ve found that claims Indians scalped Penelope was printed in 1876 by John Carroll Power in Early Settlers of Sangamon County [IL] – 1876. Springfield, IL: E. L. Merritt & Bro., Printers, 1876. pp 690-3

Even though John Carroll Power cites Benedict’s book as a source, this 1876 version disagrees in many respects with Benedict. See how many you can identify.

This garbling of a cited source suggests that the scalping was invented or at least was an embellishment of the original.

“STOUT, the origin of this family in America is quite romantic. The principal points in their history may be found in Benedict's History of the Baptists. Some of his statements are based on the writings of an earlier historian. The following embraces all that is known on the subject:

“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. She alone survived, and although her scalp was removed and she was otherwise horribly mangled, she had sufficient remaining strength to crawl away from the scene of the slaughter, and secreted herself in a hollow log which was concealed by underbrush. She lay there a day or two, during which time her mental and bodily suffering may be imagined but cannot be described. She finally made up her mind that there was no possibility of her escaping with life; that if she remained quiet she would certainly die of hunger and thirst, and if she attempted to seek sustenance, that would expose her to the Indians, who would be sure to kill her. At this juncture, a deer, with an arrow sticking in its body, ran past where she was. This led her to believe that Indians were near, and she reasoned that it would be a much easier death to let them kill her, than to endure the pangs of starvation by remaining where she was. She then summoned all her remaining strength and dragged her body out to an open space that the Indians might see her should they pursue the deer. In a short time three of the savages appeared on its trail. Two of them rushed upon her with uplifted tomahawks, but the third one, a chief, restrained them and saved her life. It was not humanity, but gain that prompted him to this act of mercy. He took his prisoner to New Amsterdam and there received a ransom for her. That placed her in the hands of friends who gave her the proper surgical treatment and nursing as she recovered. 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. It will readily be understood that I allude to one of the creations of Homer, the father of Greek poetry. A brief statement of the case, gleaned from his works will not be out of place here.

"When the Greeks declared war against Troy...[omitting long paragraph on  Trojan War]

“This modern Penelope had no such doubts to contend with. The death of her first husband was only too sure, having been witnessed by her own eyes. 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. One of them, Jonathan Stout, and his family, were the founders of the Hope well settlement, in Hunterdon county, New Jersey, where Hopewell Baptist Church was afterwards constituted. Of the first fifteen members, nine were Stouts. The church was organized at the house of a Stout, and for forty years their meetings were held chiefly at the houses of the Stouts; after which they erected their first house of worship. In 1790, two of the deacons and four of the elders were Stouts. Jonathan Stout lived until his descendants were multiplied to one hundred and seventeen....

“The Stouts very justly take pride in their family history, and being mostly Baptists, they take pride in their Baptist history also. When they meet a stranger by the name of Stout, who manifests a disposition to claim relationship, they apply one test only in their family history. They do not ask him to pronounce the word Shibboleth, but ascertain if he has any knowledge of PENELOPE, and if he knows nothing of her, they know nothing of him. In other words, they do not cultivate his acquaintance, in the direction of relationship, any further.”

The same passage (minus the long-winded paragraph about the Trojan War) also appeared in PORTRAIT & BIOGRAPHICAL ALBUM OF SANGAMON COUNTY, ILLINOIS , Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1891  p 493 and in PAST AND PRESENT OF THE CITY OF SPRINGFIELD AND SANGAMON COUNTY ILLINOIS by Joseph Wallace, M. A. of the Springfield Bar (The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, IL 1904).

The novel ideas in this passage are
Voyage about 1680 or 1690
A mention of New Jersey but not Sandy Hook
Indians lay in ambush at time of shipwreck
Tomahawked and scalped
Three Indians rescued her
Twelve sons

However, I do like their method of distinguishing Stouts who are relatives from non-relatives.

If anyone knows of an earlier scalping reference, 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

More Records from Rev. Oliver Hart's Journals

Rev. Oliver Hart (minister of Hopewell, NJ, Baptist Church from 1780 to 1795) kept a chronological journal of sermon titles he preached plus an index of the Biblical text plus notes in his diary—a triple set of overlapping  information. Below is the list of sermon dates where people’s names (a dozen marriages and 80 funerals) were mentioned [plus other details from his diary in brackets]. I think in every case where he enters both the death and the funeral, the funeral was always the day after the death. Note: Most of these events are apparently mentioned in the Town Records of Hopewell, NJ, a book I haven’t seen, but another independent source is always good.

 

I find two other things of interest. In February 1790, Rev. Morgan Edwards preached on three consecutive Sundays in Hopewell Baptist Church. Edwards was the author of Materials Towards a History of the Baptists in Jersey, its preface dated May 1, 1790. This book, published in 1792, contains the famous passage about Penelope Stout: “The mother lived to the age of 110, and saw her offspring multiplied into 502 in about 88 years.”

 

Referring to the death of Benjamin Stout in Feb 1782 at the age of 86, Rev. Hart (then 58 himself) remarked, “older than oldest of Stout family, now living.” Obviously the Stout family noted such things.
 

1780
[Oct 15 Zephaniah Stout’s child’s funeral]

[Dec 11 Zebulun Stout is brother of Capt. David Stout]

[Dec 21 Hart calls Zebulun Stout his uncle, likely by marriage not blood]

1781

Feb 4 preached at John Stout’s house [in Amwell]

[Feb 12 John Stout of Hopewell gave Hart $100]

[Feb 14 Miss Rachel Stout is sister of Richard Stout; she gave Hart $22]

[Mar 8 mentioned that Anne Stout is a widow]

Mar 12 Preached at Richard Stout’s house

[Aug 16 saw Miss Eunice Evans and Miss Margaret Parks]

[Sep 16 Married Asa Osborne to Orpha Hart; witnesses  Levi Stout, Ann Wall, and Phoebe Gillmore]

Oct 5 Mr. David’s Stout funeral [at Amwell, age 86]

Oct 11 Mr. Zephania Stout’s funeral [was buried at Col. Stout’s Burying Ground on the Hill; left widow and 2 young children]

Oct 15 Zeph. Stout’s child’s funeral

[Nov 2 Married Andrew Higgins to Sarah Applegate]

1782

[Jan 13 Married John Ford to Anna Vanhess]

Feb 9 Old Mr. Benj. Stout’s funeral [died Feb 8 at age 86, “older than oldest of Stout family , now living”]

[Feb 18 Mary-Ann Little was very ill]

Feb 23 Mrs. Baldwin’s funeral

[May 26 Rev. Hart’s diary ends here; next several diaries are missing]

Oct 4 Old Mrs. Runyan’s funeral

Nov 20 preached at Mr. Jacob Stout’s

Nov 24 at Capt. David’s house for funeral of child [Mr. Saxton’s child]

Dec 11 preached at Benj. Stout’s house

1783

Jun 4 Benj. Reader’s funeral

July 22 old Mrs. Hixon’s funeral

Aug 31 baptized Polly Gillmore

Oct 30 Mr. Saml. Hunt’s funeral

Dec 8 William Stiniman’s funeral

1784

Feb 13 Sarah Hunt’s funeral

Feb 15 Benj. Stout’s son’s funeral

Feb 21 Mrs. Bryant’s funeral

Feb 25 preached at Jacob Stout’s

May 24 Mr. Jos. Green’s funeral

Sep 20 Mrs. Merrell’s funeral

Sep 28 Effy Merrell’s funeral

Oct 6 Mrs. Simmons’s funeral

Oct 8 Ambrose Barracraft’s funeral

Nov 2 Mr. Harris’s son’s funeral

1785

Jan 3 Old Mrs. Sarah Vankirk’s fun.

Feb 6 Penelope Stout’s funeral

Apr 6 John Senteny’s funeral

Jun 4 Joshua Higgins’s wife’s funeral

Aug 28 at Southampton Jos. Dungan’s funeral

Sep 8 Sally Merrell’s funeral

Sep 13 Sarah Fano’s [Gano] funeral

Sep 22 Mr. Jacob Stout’s funeral

Sep 25 [Squire] Jared Saxton Esq’s funeral

Dec 23 Barbara Antony’s funeral

1786

Jan 12 Benjamin Merrell’s funeral

Feb 24 Catharine Vanpelt’s funeral

Mar 14 Francis Quick’s funeral

Apr 16 Mr. Isaac Hough’s funeral

May 29 Mary Armstrong’s funeral

Jun 7 John Hart’s funeral

Jun 27 Mrs. Vanpelt’s funeral
Dec 18 [Absalom Houghton’s funeral]

1787

Apr 3 Mrs. Jewel’s funeral

Apr 7 David Stout’s funeral

Apr 30 N. Drake’s wife’s funeral

Jun 26 Michal Blew’s funeral

Aug 15 Daniel Gano’s funeral

Sep 21 [young Mr.] Golden’s funeral

Dec 1 Higgin’s child’s funeral

Dec 10 Anthony Stout’s wife’s funeral

Dec 15 Mr. Fisher’s funeral

Dec 21 George Corvine’s funeral

1788

Jan 31 Rebeka Drake’s funeral

Feb 11 Thos. Drake’s child’s funeral

Feb 13 Lucina Park’s funeral

Mar 7 Nc. Drake’s grandchild’s funeral

Apr 13 funeral for Mrs. [R.] Drake’s son

May 6 Mrs. Blackwell’s funeral

Jun 5 Mr. Thomson’s fun N.Y.

Jul 8 Naomi Lot’s funeral

Aug 11 Jas. Swallow’s funeral

Aug 12 John Snook’s funeral

Aug 24 Alice Cone baptis’d

Aug 25 Young Blew’s funeral [son of Abr’m Blue]

Aug 28 Zebulun Stout Senr.’s funeral

Aug 31 Temperance Hixon baptized

Sep 1 preached at widow Golden’s

[another diary begins]

Nov 25 Caty Stout’s funeral [“died of a decline”]

[Dec 3 Married Mr. Daniel Drake to Miss Frances Golden at home of her father Jacob Golden]

Dec 8 Capt. Dd. Stout’s funeral [David Stout died y’day, age 83 years; left 4 sons, 5 daughters, many great and great grand children]
[Dec 8 William Simmon’s funeral]

[Dec 28 Married Capt. Jacob Sckanek to Miss Anne Law]

[Dec 31 Married Mr. William Barrey to Miss Ruth Golden at home of her father Jacob Golden in Hopewell]
1789

[Jan 1 Married Mr. Nicholas Drake to Miss Hannah Bryant at home of her father Valentine Bryant in Hopewell]

[Jan 11 Married his daughter Polly Hart to Mr. Benj. Merrell]

[Feb 4 Married Mr. Bemjamin Randolph to Miss Mary Stout at her uncle Zebulun Stout’s house]

[Feb 5 Married Mr. Jonathan Stout (son of Daniel) to Miss Hannah Horval at home of her father Mr. Stephen Horvel in Somerset County]

[Feb 15 baptized Amy Blue (wife of Isaac)]

Mar 26 Jno. Runyan’s wife’s funeral

[Apr 4 Married Mr. Reuben Anderson to Miss Sarah Runyan at home of John Stout]

Apr 8 at Elder Jno. Stout’s

Apr 9 at Mr. B. Stout’s

Apr 10 funeral of old Mrs. Golden [aged 90]

Apr 24 funeral of old Mrs. Sarah Stout [at John Merrell’s]

Apr 25 Ichabod Leigh [Lee]  Esqr.’s funeral

Apr 26 Baptized Sarah Smith

[Apr 30 old Mr. Benj. Stout in Amwell was dangerously ill]

May 6 Rachel Hill’s funeral [in Amwell, wife of James]

[May 16 “R. Stout was cut off, for which I am sorry.”]

May 25 Benjamin Stout Senr.’s funeral [in Amwell]

Jun 21 baptized Mary Blue

Jul 29 Natl. Hixon’s

[Aug 11 Married Mr. Joab Stout to Miss Elizabeth Bryant at her father William Bryant house in Hopewell]

[Aug 15 new deacons Saml. Stout and Jediah Stout; James Stout is Elder]

[end of this diary]

Oct 1 Jesse Christopher’s child’s funeral

Nov 5 Jos. Harris’s child’s funeral

Nov 14 Mrs. Harris’s funeral

1790

Jan 6 at Thomas Drake’s

Jan 22 Andrew Nannoy’s funeral

Jan 25 Nancy Hunt’s funeral

Feb 14 Rev. Morgan Edwards preached

 Feb 21 and 28 Rev. Morgan Edwards preached

Mar 8 Ury Osborn’s daught.s fun.

Mar 9 Sally Drake’s funeral

Mar 22 Old Mrs. Gulick’s funeral

Apr 10 old Mr. Slack’s funeral [possibly Mrs. Slack]

May 5 Francis Blackwell’s child’s funeral

1791

Jan 12 Mr. Hull’s funeral

Jan 14 at Ezek. Anderson’s for his son

Mar 13 funeral for Mr. Aaron Runyan

Apr 1 funeral for Mrs. Blackwell

Apr 14 Mr. Larson’s funeral

Apr 19 Mrs. Hunt’s funeral

July 24 mentioned following names: Mr. Ewing, Mr. Ustick, Deacon Natl. Stout, Dr. Rogers, Mr. Allison, Dr. Jones, Mr. Wilson, Thos. Drake

Aug 12 Sally Blackwell’s funeral

Aug 21 Eph. Carle’s son’s funeral

Sep 24 Hannah Brush baptized

Nov 12 old Mr. Blacwell’s funeral

Nov 28 Elias Golden’s funeral

Dec 10 Fun. The Drake’s child

Dec 14 Mrs. Drake’s funeral

1792

Jan 20 Jemmy Gordon’s funeral

Mar 11 Thos. Drake’s funeral

May 22 in room of Moses Hadley

Sep 14 Mrs. Merrell’s funeral

1793

Jul 3 John Ketcham’s funeral

Jul 26 at Mr. James Parine’s

1794

Jan 10 Mrs. Pettitt’s funeral

Jan 28 Idin Post’s funeral

May 1 Gideon Lion’s son’s funeral

Jun 13 Polly Furman’s funeral
 

{Editor's Note: Rev. Hart died Dec 31, 1795}

 

A Summary of What's Known about Penelope

Last week I listed the major sources of the stories about Penelope. Combining all threads produces the following summary of what we know about Penelope:

Penelope (whose maiden name was possibly Kent or Lent or Thompson or Thomson or vanPrincis or vanPrinces or vanPrincen or vanPrincess or van Prince or van Printzen) was born probably in the 1620s in either England or Holland to unknown parents who were either English or Dutch. Rumors suggest her father was a minister. In the 1640s at approximately 20 years of age, Penelope married either an Englishman or a Dutchman (whose name was probably Kent or Prince or vanPrince or vanPrincis or vanPrinces or vanPrincess or van Prince or van Printzen) probably in Amsterdam. Soon thereafter they sailed on a ship (name unknown) from Amsterdam to the Dutch West Indies colony of New Amsterdam possibly by way of the Caribbean island of Curacao.

Sometime in the 1640s somewhere in the Sandy Hook area of Raritan Bay (in what is now Monmouth County, NJ), Penelope’s ship (which might have the Kath/Kat/Cat/Cath which sank in 1648, returning from Curacao with a cargo of salt) ran aground or capsized in a storm or sank. Everyone except Penelope perished in the incident or else everyone except Penelope was killed by Indians after surviving the wreck or else everyone safely made it to shore except Penelope’s husband who was either injured in the wreck or had been sick on the voyage. If other passengers and crew survived the incident, they hiked to New Amsterdam, but Penelope refused to abandon her husband, who was too sick or injured to travel.

After the wreck, Indians attacked whoever was still there on the beach. If Penelope’s husband survived the wreck, the Indians killed him. The Indians mutilated Penelope (head injury and/or shoulder injury and/or partially disemboweled and/or scalped), and left her for dead. She managed to crawl into a hollow log or tree for protection and survived on the fungus growing on the rotten wood.

Later (perhaps a week), one or two Indians possibly with a dog were on the beach. Possibly they wounded a deer, which ran by Penelope’s log/tree with an arrow sticking out of it. Penelope called to the Indians to put her out of her misery. The young Indian (assuming there were two) was anxious to do so, but the older one prevailed. The older Indian carried the wounded white woman to his village near where the town of Middletown now stands. She recovered from her injuries.

Either Penelope lived with the Indians for many years, or else she escaped in a canoe, or else white men heard of her presence and rescued her, or else the old Indian delivered her to New Amsterdam for a ransom.

On 12 Sep 1648 (our only reliable date) in Gravesend, Long Island, colony of New Netherland, Pennellopy Prince testified in a slander trial about one woman milking another woman’s cow.

Penelope married Richard Stout, an early settler of Gravesend (on Long Island near Coney Island), who may have been 40 years old when they married in the 1640s (probably between 1642 and 1648). Richard was likely from Nottinghamshire, England, likely left home after an argument with his father possibly about a woman his father deemed unsuitable, and served in the English navy (possibly involuntarily) for probably seven years before being discharged in America (probably in New Amsterdam) about 1642.  "Octoberr 13th, 1643, Richard Aestin, Ambrose Love [London?] and Richard Stout made declarations that the crew of the Seven Stars and of the privateer landed at the farm of Anthony Jansen, of Salee, in the Bay, and took off 200 pumpkins, and would have carried away a lot of hogs from Coney Island had they not learned that they belonged to Lady Moody."

Penelope and Richard Stout had 10 children who lived to maturity and populated New Jersey.

At some point after marriage and by 1666 at the latest, Penelope and Richard left Gravesend and (with other settlers) founded the town of Middletown, NJ, near where the old Indian’s village was. At some point while she had young children (probably near Middletown but possibly in Gravesend), the old Indian warned Penelope that other Indians planned to attack her settlement. She could not persuade her husband of the truth, so she took the children away in a canoe (possibly provided by the old Indian). At her departure, her husband decided to be prudent, gathered the other settlers, and thwarted the attack before it occurred. Thereafter, the Indians and settlers lived in peace.

Richard Stout died as an old man (probably around age 90), his will being probated in 1705. Penelope died probably between 1712 and 1732 at an old age, which some claim was 110 years, at which time she had 502 descendants. She was buried somewhere in the Middletown area. Her numerous descendants recounted her adventures to their numerous descendants.

Penelope told her great grandson John Stout to reach into her apron pocket and feel her abdominal scar. John told this story to his granddaughter Helena Hoff, who told her granddaughter Therese Walling.

 

Conjecture # 6: The different stories of Penelope all derive from a common source.

Technorati claim code # UF6CS44PUDMR

The story of Penelope had to have been shared among the family for generations or else it would never have been printed so often. The Stout family was large and dispersed in many directions. Among the different branches of the family, and over the centuries, some of the details were lost or "improved." But there should be a solid core of truth that all these legends developed from. By comparing the versions, perhaps we can derive the core or at least separate the plausible from the inplausible.

First let me enumerate the various threads. There are 7 historical: Burlington, Hopewell, Amwell, Sangamon, Seabrook, Ocean Grove, and Monmouth and three fictional threads: Crawford, Phillips and McFarlane. If anyone else has another original source, please let me know. I don’t have time now but I would like to compare the similarities and differences between these versions.
Historical
1. Burlington: Samuel Smith (author of The History of the Colony of Nova Caesaria or New Jersey to Year 1721, pub. 1765) was born in Burlington (near Trenton), was a merchant in Philadelphia, returned to Burlington where he served as mayor, treasurer of the colony of West Jersey from 1750 to 1775 and on the New Jersey Council. Even though he was from the western part of the state and Middleton is in the eastern part, he was a Quaker (as were many of the Stouts) and likely knew people from everywhere. Therefore, we don’t know where Smith heard the story of Penelope that he used to illustrate the relative absence of Indian wars in New Jersey, compared to New York and New England.

2. Hopewell: Morgan Edwards (author of Materials Toward A History of the Baptists in New Jersey, pub 1792 and expanded by Benedict, David. A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America, and Other Parts of the World. London: Lincoln & Edmands, 1813) was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia from 1761 to 1771, then moved to Delaware, and was the first Baptist historian. His information about Penelope came from Rev. Oliver Hart, Baptist pastor at Charleston, SC (1751 to 1780) and Hopewell, NJ from Dec 1780 to 1795. [Note: Hart’s papers reside in the South Caroliniana Library in Columbia, SC (only 100 miles from me; I’ll have to research that. What if Edwards only published a summary of Hart’s report?)]

3. Amwell: Nathan Stout of Amwell, NJ wrote The History of the Stout Family,1823. His great grandson, Simpson Stout, erected a monument with a long, detailed genealogy. This is the first published account by a direct descendant of Penelope.

4. Sangamon: Stout descendants of Sangamon County, Illinois, related the family history to a local historian, John Carroll Power, who wrote Early Settlers of Sangamon County [IL] – 1876. Springfield, IL: Edwin Wilson & Co., 1876, pp 690-2. No offense to my Illinois cousins, but this sounds like a poorly remembered and slightly garbled account of the New Jersey versions with a unique twist, namely, the earliest mention of Penelope being scalped.

5. Seabrook: In his 1916 analysis [Historical and Genealogical Miscellany, Early Settlers of New Jersey and their Descendants] of the Penelope saga, John Stillwell, M.D., recounts an incident that was passed down through the generations to Mrs. T. W. Seabrook: “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.”

6. Ocean Grove. William Montgomery Clemens (1860-1931), a genealogist, newspaperman and author, published American Marriages Before 1699 in the year 1926. This book is mostly New England data plus a few mid-Atlantic entries.  In 1931, he died in Ocean Grove, NJ, which is in Monmouth County. Therefore, I conjectured that he discussed genealogy with Stout descendants in the area.

7. Monmouth County: Both the Monmouth County Historical Association Library in Freehold and the Spy House Museum Complex in Port Monmouth have local newspaper articles, which are most likely based upon local family legend. I haven’t seen them but many people refer to them on the Internet.

Fictional

8. Crawford: The young adult book Four Women in a Violent Time (Crawford, 1970) purports to be historical yet her only listed source that links to Penelope is Samuel Smith’s 1765 account. However, most of the details in Crawford’s book are found in no source. Therefore, I conclude the portion of Crawford’s book about Penelope is 99% fictional, basically a novel. But it’s important to point out her fictions, such as a maiden name of Thompson.

9. Schott: In the narrative poem Penelope: The Story of the Half-Scalped Woman, the author writes in the forward, "Where little is known, much is invented." Penelope marries vanPrincis, miscarries on the beach after the Indian attack, is rescued by an Indian named Machk, marries John Richard Stout, is Applegate's niece, and dies in 1712.

10. Phillips: The novel As Good As Dead: The Penelope Stout Story is also an interesting work of fiction. Her fictional genealogy is that Rev. Thomson forces his daughter Penelope to marry Baron Kent Van Princis.

11. McFarlane: In my novel Penelope: A Novel of New Amsterdam the fictional genealogy is that Penelope Kent, born 13 Aug 1626, marries Matthew Prince in order to search for her missing father, John Kent, an English merchant. The novel includes the documented history of the ship Kath and conjectures that Penelope was a passenger when it wrecked.

If anyone knows of other original sources that draw on different family memories, please let me know.

Who was Alice Stout, daughter of Richard and Penelope, named after?

I found an Internet site that claims Alice was very popular in medieval times (See Chaucer), was scarce for several centuries, then returned to popularity in the Victorian era in time for Alice in Wonderland. Futher checking revealed an Internet site (http://victoria.tc.ca/~tgodwin/duncanweb/documents/names.html) that extracted names for babies born in England in 1620-1629 from a reliable source. (The author was interested in adults in the English Civil War, but names from 1650-1659 England would be skewed by the Puritan success in the Civil War. Thus 1620-1629 is fine for our purposes. A sampling of WorldConnect entries for people born in England in 1620-30 confirmed these were popular names.)
 

The ranking of the popularity of the names of the seven sons of Richard and Penelope are:

#1 John
#4 Richard
#7 James
#21 Peter
#30 Benjamin
#39 Jonathan
#45 David

Likewise for the daughters:

#2 Mary
#5 Alice
#12 Sarah

All ten are common names from the 17^th as well as the 20^th century. All except Richard and Alice are found in the Bible. Interestingly, none are Puritan-like names, such as Eli, Caleb, Hope, and Charity.

The English naming practices for several centuries was to often name the first two babies of each sex after the grandparents and then parents. I just disproved my own theory that Alice was a rare clue to Penelope’s ancestry.

But the question still remains: Who was Alice Stout named after?

And Mary? And Sarah? Why no Elizabeth if Richard’s mother was Elizabeth Bee?

Conjecture #5: Penelope sailed from Amsterdam in the spring of 1648 with a stopover in Curacao.

In the previous post I conjectured that de Kath picked up Penelope and her first husband in Curaçao. How could they get to Curaçao?

Dutch West India Company

The Dutch West India Company had responsibility for the trade and protection of all Dutch colonies along the Atlantic, such as Pernambuco in Brazil, west Africa, and New Netherland (which included the Manhattan region plus the Caribbean islands of Curaçaoand nearby Bonaire with its salt pans). In 1647 Peter Stuyvesant, the new Director-General of New Netherland, sailed to New Amsterdam by way of Curaçao, partly because Curaçao was part of his domain, and partly because it made sense.

Sailing Ship Routes

The route of a sailing ship was determined largely by sailing conditions and profit opportunities. As the Pilgrims learned when sailing directly west across the North Atlantic from England to Plymouth, the prevailing westerly winds made that a dangerous voyage of 66 days. John Winthrop’s fleet sailed from Yarmouth, England (51° N lattitude) to Massachusetts Bay (42° N) in 1630 via the Azores (40° N), a more southerly route, in 6 weeks yet the winds were still often from the west. In later years his Journal recorded the length of many voyages to New England, the fastest being 5 to 6 weeks, the longest being 12 to 20 weeks.

However, the more typical sailing route to the Caribbean is by way of the Canary Islands at 28° N. Even Columbus stopped here on his first voyage in 1492. The trade winds generally deliver ships to the Windward (literally, facing the wind) Islands of the Lesser Antilles, a long arc of small islands that mark the eastern edge of the Caribbean and stretch from Puerto Rico to Venezuela. While the Spanish concentrated on the Greater Antilles (that is, the big islands of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica), the English and French were able to colonize Windward Islands such as Barbados, St. Lucia, and Martinique before 1650. The Dutch settled further west in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.

Barbados

According to Wikipedia, in 1644, before the workforce began to shift to African slaves, the Caribbean island of Barbados had a population of 30,000 (compared to about 23,000 in New England and maybe 1000 in New Netherland), mostly English indentured servants working the sugar fields. By 1660, when the population was 27,000 black and 26,000 white, this one island generated more trade than the rest of the North American English colonies combined. At first, Dutch traders supplied the financing and African slaves and transported most of the sugar to Europe. This information is pertinent because 1) it shows that Curaçao (about 500 miles away from Barbados) was near the trade routes in the 1640s and 2) Conjecture #3 mentioned that the New Jersey Concessions retained much of the language of the Carolina Concessions that were intended to lure small Barbados farmers who couldn’t compete with the neighboring big slave-driven plantations by 1665.

Four ships that sailed from Amsterdam to New Amsterdam in 1648

Since I published my novel, I learned from Olive Tree Genealogy (which I think took its data from Jaap Jacobs’s master’s thesis in Dutch) the names of three ships with passengers that left Holland for New Amsterdam in the spring or summer of 1648 and one that probably sailed later in the year . Those were

1. den Valckenier (The Falconer owned by the trading family Verbrugge, whose son Seth Verbrugge appears in the novel as a merchant) was detained on 23 Jun 1648 upon its arrival in New Amsterdam and searched for smuggled goods. No record on what was found. It departed for Holland after 31 Aug 1648.

2. Pijnappel (also spelled Pynappel, which translates to Pineapple and was owned by Hardenbergh) arrived in New Amsterdam before 18 Jul 1648 and departed after 23 Sept 1648.

3. Prins Willem (which translates to Prince William and was owned by the West India Company) arrived in New Amsterdam before 5 Aug 1648.

4. Jonge Prins van Deenemarcken (translates to Young Prince of Denmark, possibly a reference to Shakespeare’s Hamlet) arrived in New Amsterdam after 21 Dec 1648.

Summary

The above discussion is intended to show that there was considerable ship traffic between Holland, the Caribbean islands, and the New Amsterdam/New England area and thus it is plausible that Penelope sailed from Amsterdam to New Amsterdam by way of Curaçao.

Privateering in 1654

I just came across a detailed treatise entitled Ships and Workboats of New Netherland 1609-1674 that contained an interesting tidbit:“In June 1654 the yacht de Huen (Cock) left New Amsterdam for Curacao, her official orders being to bring back a cargo of salt. She had, however, been‘equipped with such munitions of war as she requires.’ In spite of this generous armament, she was taken by the Spanish on her homeward voyage.”

Comments

Again the comments section awaits you. Does anyone know any good reference books on the 17th century sailing routes in the Atlantic?

Conjecture #3: Penelope and Richard Stout married in late 1648/early 1649.

When did Penelope marry Richard Stout? This date is often associated with the date of the shipwreck but let’s save the shipwreck for next week and argue these two controversial events independently.

Two Marriage Opinions: 1644 or 1648

The popular answer is circa 1644 and the minority opinion is soon after the slander trial on 12 Sept 1648. Let’s deal with the minority opinion first because its argument is simply that the trial record lists her name as Penellopey Prince because she was a widow (See Conjecture #1) and thus hadn’t yet remarried. If she had remarried, she would have been referred to the wife of Richard Stout or possibly as Mrs. Stout.

The 1644 Argument
The argument for a marriage date of 1644 was introduced by Dr. John Stillwell in 1916 and relies on A) the documented fact that the two eldest sons of Richard Stout (namely, John and Richard, Jr.) were awarded full land grants of 120 acres based upon residence in New Jersey before 1 Jan 1665 as adults, not minors, and assumption B) that the sons were thus eighteen years of age in 1664. Because no one suggests that Richard had sons from a prior marriage, assumption C) is that the first son was born about one year after the marriage date of Richard and Penelope and the second son between two and three years after the marriage date.

Working backwards, the math is

Before 1 Jan 1665 = ages of sons are 19/20 and 18
Before 1 Jan 1647 = second son’s birth
1645 = first son’s birth
1644 = Marriage date

A marriage date much earlier than 1644 is implausible because Gravesend was settled in 1643, then abandoned because of Indian troubles and resettled in 1645. Also it is generally accepted (without proof) that Richard Stout arrived in New Amsterdam around the spring of 1643.

Two Challenges to Majority Opinion

I challenge the interpretation of both the date 1 Jan 1665 and the legal age of eighteen.

The Concessions Document

The charter that the new governor of New Jersey brought with him in 1665 designating the requirements for land grants to settlers was a little more generous than the one announced the same year for the Carolinas. The concessions for New Jersey and Carolina had three things in common:
1. They encouraged rapid settlement by reducing the size of the land grants in later years.
2. They required settlers to physically occupy the land to eliminate speculators.
3. They gave the largest grants to heads of household, wives, and able-bodied men ready and able to defend the colony against Indian attack and half-grants to “weaker” servants.

The section of the New Jersey Concessions under which the Stouts claimed land stated, “To every master or mistress that shall go before the first day of January, which shall be in the year one thousand six hundred sixty-five; one hundred and twenty acres of land. And for every able man servant, that he or she shall carry or send, arm'd and provided as aforesaid” [which an earlier section explained as arm'd with a good musket, bore twelve bullets to the pound, with ten pounds of powder, and twenty pounds of bullets, with bandiliers and match convenient, and with six months provision for his own person], “ and arriving within the time aforesaid, the like quantity of one hundred and twenty acres of land: And for every weaker servant or slave, male or female, exceeding the age of fourteen years, arriving there, sixty acres of land.”

 

Challenge #1: The Day After 31 Dec 1665 is 1 Jan 1665 
According to Wikipedia the English legal year began on March 25 until the conversion from the Julian to Gregorian calendar nearly a century later in 1752. Therefore the legal date of 1 Jan 1665 is the day after 31 Dec 1665, or 1 Jan 1666 as we would think of it. To reduce confusion, a date between 1 Jan and 24 Mar was often written in the format of 1 Jan 1665/66 but not in legal documents.

To further confirm the deadline of 1 Jan 1665/66, consider the timeframe of relevant events, including the fact that the document itself didn’t arrive in New York until July 1665:

8 Sept 1664—Col. Nicholls captured New Amsterdam for the English and renamed it New York.
10 Feb 1664/65 – Lords Proprietors of New Jersey, John Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret (both of whom were also among the proprietors of the Carolinas), signed the Concession and Agreements document with the 1 Jan 1665/66 deadline.
29 Jul 1665—the new governor Philip Carteret (relative of Sir George Carteret) arrived in New York with the documents, the first English ship since the conquest.
Aug 1665—Governor Philip Carteret accompanied the first settlers to found Elizabethtown, the capital of New Jersey. These able-bodied settlers accompanying the governor received 150 acres.
1 Jan 1665/66—deadline for other settlers to receive maximum land grants of 120 acres.

Challenge #2: Able Man Servant or Weaker Servant

Secondly, how do you distinguish “able man servant” from “weaker servant or slave, male or female, exceeding the age of fourteen years”? I claim that a “weaker servant” is one not “arm'd with a good musket, bore twelve bullets to the pound, with ten pounds of powder, and twenty pounds of bullets, with bandiliers and match convenient.” Thus, a weaker servant is anyone whom the master would not trust with a musket, such as an African slave, a feeble old man, or an untrustworthy servant brought along to claim and work the land, whereas an able man servant is any male over the age of fourteen who can handle a musket. The inclusion of slaves may seem odd but there were numerous slaves in New Amsterdam/New York and the language was copied from the Carolina document intended to lure slave-owning sugar planters from the Caribbean.

Also consider the history of Gravesend. Attacked and burned by the Indians in 1643 before it was properly built. Resettled in 1645 with a town charter that required residents to maintain a section of the palisade wall and to stockpile musket, lead, and powder. In fact, a person could not buy a lot in Gravesend without an armed, able-bodied man to live on it. Plus the story about Tisquantum warning Penelope to flee from an impending Indian attack. And the Peach War of 1655. In those circumstances do you think it likely that a fourteen-year-old boy knew how to handle a musket?

The New Math

Therefore the revised math is

By 31 Dec 1665 = ages of sons are 15/16 and 14, satisfying Concessions requirement.

By 31 Dec 1651 = second son’s birth
1650 = first son’s birth
After 12 Sep 1648 and before mid-1649 = Marriage date
 

Conclusion

Thus a marriage around 31 Dec 1648 would allow a plausible thirty-six months to birth two children, sons luckily enough, and would allow Penelope to still be an umarried widow  on 12 Sep 1648.

Just Wondering

I wonder if the descendants of other New Jersey settlers have better documented ages of their ancestors’ children who claimed land under the same provisions.

Comments Please

Please use the comments section to express your opinions about my conjecture and the logic behind it or to ask questions that might spur further research.

 

Sponsored by Jim's website and the book Penelope: A Novel of New Amsterdam