Kent, Germanicus, 1791-1862
Dates
- Existence: 1791 - 1862
Biographical Note
Germanicus Kent (1791-1861) and Arabella Amiss Kent (1809-1951), parents of Harvey Black's wife Mary, are also documented in this collection. Germanicus Kent was born in Suffield, Connecticut, and attended Yale College. Circa 1822, he moved to Huntsville, Alabama, and worked as a cotton merchant. In 1827, he married Arabella Amiss of Blacksburg. According to a family account, Germanicus Kent left Huntsville in 1834 at the insistence of his brother Aratus Kent, a missionary in Illinois who opposed slavery. Aratus Kent was a founder of Beloit and Rockford colleges in Illinois. The family moved to Illinois in 1834. Lewis Kent (also known as Lewis Lemon), a slave who was purchased by Germanicus Kent in North Carolina when he was a boy, moved with the family and later purchased his freedom and settled in Iowa. Germanicus Kent is considered a founder of the town of Rockford, Illinois, and served in the Illinois state legislature. Mary Kent, born in 1836, was the first child of European ancestry born in Rockford. The family returned to Arabella's hometown of Blacksburg in 1843.
Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:
Black, Kent, and Apperson Family Papers
This collection contains the papers and artifacts of an interrelated family prominent in Blacksburg's history. It includes the American Civil War letters of Confederate surgeon Dr. Harvey Black, the Civil War diary of hospital steward John S. Apperson, cotton books and correspondence of Germanicus Kent, nineteenth-century account books of a Blacksburg general store, 1912 European travel diary, and the political scrapbooks of State Senator and Attorney General Harvey B. Apperson.