Henry O. Kent
COL. HENRY O. KENT.
BY H. H. METCALF.
Among the best known of the representative men of New Hampshire, Col. Henry O. Kent of Lancaster is conceded a prominent position. The Kent family is of English origin, the first of the name in this country being among the settlers of old Newbury, Mass., in 1635. John Kent, a scion of this stock, died in 1780, at Cape Ann, Mass., aged eighty years. His son, Jacob, born at Chebacco (now Essex), Mass., in 1726, settled in Plaistow in this state. In 1760, a regiment commanded by Col. John Goffe was raised in New Hampshire for the invasion of Canada, one company of which was officered by John Hazen, captain; Jacob Kent (above named), first lieutenant; and Timothy Beadle, second lieutenant. This regiment marched to Number Four (Charlestown), cutting a road through the forest to the Green Mountains, and thence to Crown Point on Lake Champlain, where they took water transportation. After a successful campaign they returned through the wilderness, via the Newbury meadows or the "Cohos country," with the fertility of which region Lieut.-Col. Jacob Bayley, Capt. Hazen, and Lieutenants Kent and Beadle were so favorably impressed that they determined to return and found a settlement. The project was soon carried out, Bayley and Kent locating on the western, and Hazen and Beadle on the eastern, side of the river, from which settlements sprang the towns of Newbury and Haverhill. Jacob Kent died at Newbury, in 1812, at the age of eighty-six years. He was a noted man in his section, commander of the first company of militia in the towns of Newbury and Haverhill "in our province of New Hampshire," as says his commission, signed in 1764 by Benning Wentworth, which, with his sword, borne in two wars, is now in Col. Kent's possession. During the Revolution, while burdened with the cares of the infant settlement, he was an earnest actor in the scenes which gave us our independence. He was colonel of the forces in his vicinity, and on the advance of Burgoyne started with his regiment for the field, and was present with it at the capitulation at Saratoga. The original homestead is still in the family, Col. Jacob Kent—a gentleman through a long life well known in the political, military, and social circles of Vermont—being the present owner.
Jacob Kent, first named, left three sons,—Jacob, John, and Joseph. John Kent, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, settled in the town of Lyman, where he died in 1842, leaving four sons and one daughter. The father of Col. Kent—Richard Peabody Kent—was one of these sons, his mother, Tabitha Peabody, being a daughter of Lieutenant Richard Peabody of the Revolutionary army. He is still in active business in Lancaster, where he settled and engaged in mercantile pursuits in 1828. During this long career his affairs have been transacted with scrupulous integrity, exactitude, and honor. Though never in public life, he has always taken a deep interest in the material and educational welfare of the community. On the maternal side the ancestry of Col. Kent is traced to Richard Mann, "a planter in the family of Elder Brewster," who was one of the colony of the Mayflower. From him descended that John Mann, born December 25, 1743, who was the first permanent settler of the town of Orford, N. H., October, 1765. To him were born fifteen children, of whom Solomon Mann was well known in the state. Emily, second daughter of Solomon Mann, married Henry Oakes, an active and well known business man at Waterford and Fairlee, Vt. To Henry and Emily (Mann) Oakes were born three daughters and a son. One of the daughters, Emily Mann Oakes, was married to Richard P. Kent at Littleton, June 5, 1832. To this union there were born three children—sons—Henry Oakes, Edward Richard, and Charles Nelson.
Henry Oakes Kent was born in Lancaster, February 7, 1834. He attended the district school and Lancaster Academy, and graduated from Norwich Military University in the class of 1854, receiving later the degree of A. M. He studied law with Hon Jacob Benton, and was admitted to the bar at Lancaster in May, 1858. Soon after, he became the proprietor of the Coos Republican, and assumed the editorial and business management of that paper, his strong interest in political affairs and the fortunes of the Republican party, with which he was actively indentified, impelling him to this step, in taking which he relinquished the prospect of a successful and distinguished career at the bar. In the management of the Republican, both financial and editorial, he displayed rare skill and ability. His leading articles were always strong, vigorous, earnest, and secured for his paper, notwithstanding its remote location from the Capital, an influential position among the party journals of the state. It is safe to say that from the time when he assumed its management until 1870, when he sold it,—a period of twelve years,—no paper in the state rendered more efficient support to the party with which it was allied, or advocated more heartily all measures tending to advance the material prosperity of the section in which it was located, than did the Coos Republican under the direction of Col. Kent.
Since 1870 he has attended to a large and growing general office business, to which he had previously given more or less attention, and also to the interests of the Savings Bank for the County of Coos, for which institution he secured the charter in 1868, and of which he is and has been a trustee and the treasurer. He is also an owner and manager of the Lancaster paper-mill; is treasurer of the Pleasant Valley Starch Company, and is president of the Lancaster and Kilkenny Railroad Company, a corporation organized to develop the resources of the adjoining forest town of Kilkenny. The encouragement of local enterprise and industry has, indeed, always been one of his characteristics.