Administrative History

James Madison Kent, son of John and Elizabeth Baskett Kent, was born in Virginia in 1819. In 1845, Kent purchased from Longston Mosby a tract of land in Fluvanna County, Virginia and built a residence and store near what is today the intersection of Route 601 and Kents Store Way. By 1868, Kent had partnered with his future brother-in-law, Booker Parrish, to form Kent & Parrish, and in 1870, he married Elizabeth Parrish. The couple would have two sons, George Henry and James Aubrey Kent.

Kent & Parrish grew quickly, and by 1870, it had become one of the largest general mercantile stores in Virginia, selling primarily household goods but also catering to the wagon traffic that stopped there en route to deliver tobacco and other products to the James River Canal at Columbia.

George Henry Kent, oldest son of James and Elizabeth Parrish Kent, was born in Fluvanna County on March 6, 1853. He established the Kent's Store post office in 1874, thus giving the community an official name. Upon the death of his father (August 25, 1883), Kent continued to serve as postmaster while he and his younger brother James assumed operation of the store under the name G. H. Kent & Company. George H. Kent married Florence Mary Wood in 1881, and the couple had seven children.

Records within the collection indicate that under Kent's management, the store expanded into pharmaceutical and fertilizer sales and began the wholesale buying and selling of locally produced goods (farm crops, livestock, animal skins, etc.).

G. H. Kent & Company seems to have passed into trusteeship under S. M. Shepherd in 1903, with the remaining store inventory sold to H. R. Adams. The records within the collection indicate that George Kent purchased the store's pharmaceutical inventory and continued to operate a shop there, doing business under his own name. Following Kent's death (November 16, 1936), the business apparently continued to be operated by family members as late as 1947.

Found in 1 Collection or Record: