estry may be traced briefly. Richard Stout, who seems to
have been first of his name in America, was the son of John Stout,
of Nottinghamshire, England. When a young man he came to New
Amsterdam (New York City), where he met Penelope Van Princess, a
young woman from Holland. She, with her first husband, had been
on a ship from Amsterdam, Holland, bound for New Amsterdam. The
ship was wrecked in the lower bay and driven on the New Jersey
coast below Staten Island. The passengers and crew escaped to the
shore, but were there attacked by Indians, and all left for dead;
Penelope alone was alive, but severely wounded. She had strength
enough to get to a hollow tree, where she is said to have lived
unaided for seven days, during which time she was obliged to keep
her bowels in place with her hand, on account of a cut across her
abdomen. At the end of this time a merciful but avaricious Indian
discovered and took pity on her. He took her to his wigwam, cared
for her, and thence took her to New Amsterdam by canoe and _sold_
her to the Dutch. This woman Richard Stout married about the year
1650. The couple settled in New Jersey, and raised a family of
seven sons and three daughters. The third son, Jonathon, married
a Bullen, settled at Hopewell, New Jersey, and had six sons and
three daughters. The fifth son, Samuel, married Catherine Simpson,
by whom he had one son, Samuel, born in 1732. This Samuel served
in the New Jersey Legislature, and was a Justice of the Peace. He
married Anne Van Dyke, and had seven sons and three daughters.
His daughter Catherine, great-great-granddaughter of Richard and
Penelope (born November 25, 1758), married, December 25, 1776,
Peter Smith, whose history we have traced. She was the companion
of all his journeyings, caring for and directing affairs and the
family in his frequent absence and itinerarys from home "preaching
the Gospel and disbursing _physic_ for the salvation of souls and
the healing of the body." She, too, was a devout Christian (Baptist),
and ministered to the exposed and often needy pioneers in the
wilderness. She survived him fifteen years, dying March 3, 1831.
She is buried beside her husband.

Mary (my mother), a daughter of Peter and Catherine Smith, born
January 31, 1799, on Duck Creek near Columbia Church, within the
present limits of Cincinnati, married (as stated) Joseph Keifer,
when not yet seventeen years of age, and became the mother of
fourteen child