Penelope was a pretty girl with blond hair, living in Hollands principal city, Amsterdam. Amsterdam in the 1630's was a fortunate place to be growing up. A city of bustle and beauty, teeming with Flemish Merchants, Jewish diamond cutters from Spain and Portugal. Huguenots- French protestants setting up leather working, glass blowing shops in their adopted country, where they had fled from religious persecution.
Penelope didn't give much thought to religion beyond Sunday Services with her family at the new church where in the noisy, milling crowd, many a flirtation had it's beginnings.
Penelope wore ribbons in her cap over her yellow ringlets, her eyes sparkled. Every day was an adventure. Something was always going on. A festival or outdoor concert, a ship sailing right up to the street wall. Not far from Penelope's home lived a young portrait painter named Rembrandt Van Ryn. They were friends. When Penelope married at the age of 20, her and her husband went to New Nether land to see if they could make a home there. On the 58th day at sea, the ship made landfall during a murky storm on the rocky shore near a beach. In fright and confusion the settlers shimmied down hand-burning lengths of rope into dories or rafts. Penelope with the help of others got her sick husband off the ship and found themselves on a barren strip of land with dense woods nearby. The people decided to press on to New Amsterdam but they did not want to leave Penelope but she refused to go and leave her husband. They promised to return with help to get them. After they left Penelope tended her husband through the night and in the morning they were set upon by 3-4 Indians with knives and tomahawks. Penelope's husband was killed and Penelope was scalped, stabbed in the shoulder and across her stomach exposing her intestines, leaving her for dead the Indians left. Penelope managed to crawl to the edge of the trees where she was able to find some dew on the leaves and the fungus excrescences and the gum from the trees to eat. She hid in the hollow of a tree for a week before seeing a deer running past her with arrows sticking in its flanks and then a dog came upon her and barked until the Indians came and found her. There were 2 Indians, a young one that wanted to kill Penelope and an older one that said no. He put Penelope upon his shoulders and took her to his came near what is known as Middle town in New Jersey. When Penelope came awake she realized the horrible pain was gone. Slabs of a sort of mud had been applied to her head and her belly was wound tightly with cloth. Her mouth was fuzzy and she thought she had been given some drugs of a sort. The Older Indian was standing over her and was talking to her in English. The Indian was named Tisquantum, Chief of the Lanni Le nape, part of the Al-gon-kin people, sworn enemy's of the Mohawks.
After Penelope was healed, rather than stay and be married to one of the braves the Chief had picked out for her, she risked her life to escape in a canoe. She landed in Gravesend in Long Island New York.
After being shipwrecked, widowed, scalped and taken prisoner by Indians, Penelope was taken to the home of Deborah Moody, she was the mayor and the first woman to lay out the town. Richard was one of her guards and with another guard found Penelope. Richard took an interest in Penelope. Richard was born in Nottingham England in 1610 with a castle as the view from his bedroom window. He had heard the stories of Robin Hood and had hiked in Sherwood Forrest. He joined the British Navy to get away from his father whom he was angry at for interfering in his love life.
After Richard and Penelope were married they went to New Jersey with several of their 10 children settling in Middle town. The old Indian came to visit her several times bringing gifts for the children. The town of Middle town grew up around the Stouts.
Life was hard for the Stout family, but they endured.
In 1705, at the age of 95, Richard died. Penelope wrote of her husband, "I was never unhappy with him."
Penelope died at the age of 110 in 1732 and is buried beside her husband on a farm, 3 miles west of Middle town. She left over 500 descendants.
Jimmy Stout, a retired jockey. William Bushnell who helped design the liberty airplane engine of WWI and a high speed railroad car in 1930's, and the Ford Trimotor airplane. Doctor A.B. Stout hybridizer of the day Lilly, and mystery writer Rex Stout.
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