Penelope was born in Amsterdam, Holland, circa 1620/22, the daughter of a Baptist preacher who had fled Sheffield, England, for religious reasons. When American colonization made it possible for the English expatriates to leave Holland they, wanting their children to retain their Englishness, came to the New World.  She married shortly before leaving Holland in 1640. Her adventures upon arrival are the stuff of legend; like all good legends, there is a certain variation in the details but the core of the story remains throughout. 
     The ship on which she and her husband were traveling was ship-wrecked off Sandy Hook in what is now New Jersey, just across the bay from New Amsterdam. Her husband was sick of a fever.  The other surviving passengers fled up the coast to New Amsterdam, leaving Penelope to care for her sick husband. Before long they were attacked by Indians. Her husband was killed and Penelope was left for dead. 
     She was evidently wounded about the head (supposedly a partial scalping) and her intestines were protruding. For several days she was able to survive alone before two Indians came by. They argued, evidently about whether or not to kill her. The older Indian prevailed, saving her life and so, putting her across his shoulder, carried her to the Indian village. 
     He was kind to her and she lived and worked there for about a year before the men of New Amsterdam, hearingd of a white woman living with the Indians, came to barter for her. Her captor asked if she wished to leave. When she said she did, the old man accepted payment and let her go.
     Smith's History of New Jersey, published in 1765, tells the story slightly differently.  It relates that a party of Indians found the couple and immediately killed the man. They then mangled the woman, and left her for dead. After hiding for several days in a hollow tree, Penelope was found by a friendly Indian who nursed her back to health. A rescue party found her and brought her to New Amsterdam - now New York - and a short time later she married an Englishman, Richard Stout.

     Either way, itt was through this transaction of events that Penelope became a member of the New Amsterdam colony and she and Richard Stout met were  and were married in 1644. 

     Family members, telling of Penelope in later years, relate that she always wore a head dress to conceal her terrible scars.  Penelope outlived Richard by a number of years. Stout and Allied Families give her name as Penelope Kent or Lent, and her first husband as Mr. Van Princen or Von Princess.  "Four Women in a Violent Time" by Debora H Crawford gives her name as Penelope Thomson or Thompson, and her first husband as Kent Van Princes. Penelope was instrumental in helping Lady Deborah Moody found Gravesend, New York.   

     Penelope and Richard later returned to New Jersey and had 10 children. The nameless Indian who saved Penelope Stout's life was a frequent visitor and friend. According to the tale, he later alerted the community to a potential confrontation with another band of marauding natives, probably from New York. Most accounts agree that Penelope lived to be 110 (death dates differ - either 1712 or 1732) and had some 502 descendants at the time of her death.. Many of her descendants still live in the county.  She is reported to have been the first white woman to set foot on Monmouth County soil.

It is said the Stout family by Penelope's 88th birthday had grown to 502, with daughters having married into the families of the Bounds, Pikes, THROCKMORTONS, and Skeltons. Tradition tells that Penelope lived to be 110 years old." Along with STOUT, GROVER, GIBBONS, BOWNE, GOULDING, and SPICER, came John TILTON Jr., Walter CLARKE, William REAPE, Nathaniel SYLVESTER, Obadiah HOLMES, and Nicholas DAVIS. On April 7, 1665, these twelve patentees Chief Pomamora and his brother, Mishacong signed the purchase agreement, THE MONMOUTH PATENT."

Richard and Penelope were the parents of ten children: