Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/105

 THE

��OKANITE MONTHLY.

��A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, HISTORY AND STATE PROGRESS.

VOL. 1 AUGUST, 1877.

��NO. 4.

��COL. HENBY 0. KENT.

��Among the best known of the repre- sentative men of New Hampshire, at the present time, from his connection with politics, as well as business affairs, Col. Henry O. Kent of Lancaster may well be conceded a prominent position. In pre- senting the readers of the Granite Monthly with a brief sketch of Col. Kent's career, some allusion to his an- cestral history may not come amiss.

As the name indicates, the Kent family is of English origin. There is no direct record antedating John Kent, who died in 1780 at Cape Ann, Mass., at the age of eighty years. His son Jacob, born at Chebacco, (now Essex), Mass., in 1726, settled in the town of Plaistow, in this State. In 1760, a regiment of eight hun- dred men was raised in New Hampshire, commanded by Col. John Goffe of Lon- donderry, for the invasion of Canada. Of this regiment, one company was officered by John Hazen, Captain, Jacob Kent- above named — 1st Lieut., and Timothy Beadle 2d Lieut. The regiment rendez- voued at Litchfield, and marched by Pe- terborough and Keene to Number 4, (Charlestown), thence cut a road through the wilderness 26 miles to the Green Mountains, and thence to Crown Point

��on Lake Champlain, where they took wa- ter transportation. After a successful campaign, they returned through the wil- derness via the Newbury meadows, or the Cohos country, undoubtedly follow- ing the old Indian path up the Oliverian and down Baker Elver to the Pemigewas- set. While returning, Lt. Col. Jacob Bay- ley, Captain Hazen, and Lieutenants Kent and Beadle, were so favorably im- pressed with the fertility of the Cohos meadows that they determined to return and found a settlement. This project was speedily carried out, Bayley and Kent lo- cating on the western, and Hazen and Beadle on the eastern side of the river, from which settlements sprang the towns of Newbury, then in the "New Hamp- shire Grants," — now in Vermont — and Haverhill, N. H. Gen. Jacob Bayley was a prominent man in Newbury, through a long and useful life. Many of his de- scendants still reside in the town. Tim- othy Beadle, or Bedel, as the name is now spelled, was an officer of distinction in the subsequent war of the Revolution, father of Gen. Moody Bedel of the war of 1S12, and grand-father of the late Gen. John Bedel of Bath and Col. Hazen Be- del of Colebrook.

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