The following material is verbatim from Historical and Genealogical Miscellany, Early Settlers of New Jersey and their Descendants, by John E. Stillwell, M.D., Vol. IV, New York, 1916, p. 297 et seq. Patty Myers We may pass Bergen (Early Settlers of King's County, pp. 286-287), who quotes Raum and cavils at the accuracy of the tradition, and Franklin Ellis, (History of Monmouth County, N.J., pp. 66-68), who follows Smith and Edwards, and, while properly taking exception to palpable errors in dates, is in error himself when he criticises the Indian attitude, which, at times, was intensely hostile. With Salter and Stockton following Smith and Edwards, we may now close the list. These printed histories are reinforced by manuscript histories and oral traditions. Of these, a manuscript history of the Stouts was made, in 1823, by Nathan Stout. It was from a copy of this work, made by Mr. Joseph D. Hoff, of Middletown, N.J., in 1885, that I made a copy in 1892, which so far as the genealogy goes, is incorporated, as far as possible, in corrected shape, in the following contributions to the Stout family history. The narrative concerning Penelope Stout, which was the introduction to this man! uscript family history, is produced in its original language further on, and is practically the same as those that have appeared in print. Of the oral traditions, those derived from the late Mrs. Henry Seabrook, of Keyport, nee Therese Walling, are, doubtless, the most accurate, original and entertaining. Mrs. Seabrook was an intellectually gifted woman, steeped in local genealogical lore, derived from her great ancestors. Upon their laps she sat when young, or with the assembled elders at the nearby hearthside, to be entertained by their constant repetitions of tales of exposure, hardship, love and war. The old are garrulous, live in the past, delight in the young, and with contracted lives and thought they become the local historians of the past to young but willing ears, upon whose excited imagination the stories remain indelibly impressed. Thus it was that Mrs. Seabrook passed onward the tales of her childhood. Perhaps the most important of these was the following: "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." "Richard Stout having passed seven years on a man of war schooner, which he had entered when he forsook his father's house, after the failure of his first love speculation, married Penelope Van Prince. After a time the little Dutch woman prevailed in inducing her husband to consent to come to the future site of Middletown to settle. They were accompanied by four families, tradition states, by the name of Bowne, Lawrence, Grover and Whitlock about the year 1648. The Stouts were in Middletown and Pleasant Valley; the Bownes from Chigarora Creek west and north, owning what is now Union, East and West Keyport, Brown's Point, Cliffwood, etc. The Lawrence family settled at Colt's Neck, and extended north probably to Holmdel, but generally going further south, where they swarmed. The Whitlocks settled at the Bay Shore near the site of the present Port Monmouth, and later between Middletown and Holmdel." "There was the best of understanding between Penelope Stout and her Indian 'father' as she called him, although all was not rose color between the settlers and Indians. A great-great-grand-daughter of hers used to relate to us grandchildren of her own, the following incident. Once the Indian father refused to eat with the family which he was always in the habit of doing when coming to see them, and Mrs. Stout followed him when he left the house and learned from him that his people had made arrangements to surprise and murder all the whites on the following night. She lost no time in gathering the white people together, and they made their way to the Bay Shore, and entering their canoes, lay all night in them off shore, it being too dark to go to any place across the water. The next day peace was made with them. Later in their history, the whites of Middletown and vicinity were several weeks in a Block house which stood on the ground now occupied by the Baptist Church of that! village. In the Block house or fort, were born twin great-grand-daughters of Penelope, one of whom was immediately named Hope Still, after a treaty of peace with the besiegers, the other was called Deliverance, the first name is still in the family, the last, we think was not repeated, owing perhaps to her dying unmarried, as our ancestors were sure to name the first children for their parents. There has never failed a Richard among the Hartshornes, a Richard and John among the Stouts -- a Thomas, Joe or John among Wallings, -- a Hendrick in the Hendrickson and Longstreet families -- or a Wilhemus in Covenhoven." MRS. T. W. SEABROOK. More to come---