Born ‎1615 at , Nottinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, died ‎1705 at ,, New Jersey, United States‎, age 89 or 90 years

Ran away from home and joined— or impressed into— the British Navy where he served for seven years. At New Amsterdam, left his ship and thru bearing arms became a Netherlands subject. 1643 Owned plantation 6 and upland country at Middletown. 1669 Overseer and constable. Illiterate. 1675 Deeded 1,800 acres to his heirs. 1677 Received additional 745 acres by patent, wp 10/23/1705 at Perth Amboy: Lib. 1, p 120, N.J.Wills.
(Stout and Allied Families, pg 1)

Nickname: Van Princin (‎05 Sep 2023), nickname: Lent (‎05 Sep 2023), born ‎1622 at , North Holland,, Netherlands, died ‎1732 at ,, New Jersey, United States‎, age 109 or 110 years

Just how much of Penelope's history is fact and how much legend is difficult to determine at this chronological distance, but from the whole there emerges a story of a determined and wholesome pioneer woman.

Born, presumably in Amsterdam, Holland, perhaps of dissenting English parents, (to account for her maiden name of Kent (or Lent), she was early married to a Hollander by the name of Van Princin. The ship upon this venturesome couple embarked for the New World was wrecked off Sandy Hook. Penelope and her spouse struggled ashore only to be promptly set upon by hostile Indians, the husband slain and Penelope scalped, her left arm so severely injured that she had little use of it, and her abdomen laid open so that it was necessary for her to use her hand to retain her intestines. Left for dead, she sought refuge in a hollow tree for some days, at the end of which time, reasoning she would probably die anyway, she revealed herself to another Indian hunting party. The chief, knowing she would probably be ransomed by the Dutch of New Amsterdam, had her carried to his own village near the present site of Middletown, Monmouth county, New Jersey. There her wounds were sewn with fishbone needles and vegetable fiber, and cauterized with molten resin. Despite this heroic treatment, she survived and in the course of time was ransomed by the Dutch colonial officials.…

The encomiums passed upon Penelope by her many historians indicate that she was rather more than a mediocre woman. She is credited in large part with the idea of the settlement of East Jersey, persuading her husband along with ten others to bargain with the Indians, the chief who had rescued her among them, for that tract of Monmouth county in which they settled.
(from Stout and Allied Families, pp xx - xxi)