When John Kent was christened on 6 January 1758, in St Dennis, Cornwall, England, his father, Nicholas Kent, was 28 and his mother, Joan Trethewey, was 24. He married Sarah Carlile on 11 September 1779, in Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland, United Kingdom. They were the parents of at least 5 sons and 6 daughters. He died in 1827, at the age of 69.
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Thousands of British troops were sent to Boston to enforce Britain's tax laws. Taxes were repealed on all imports to the American Colonies except tea. Americans, disguised as Native Americans, dumped chests of tea imported by the East India Company into the Boston Harbor in protest. This escalated tensions between the American Colonies and the British government.
"On April 18, 1775, a shot known as the ""shot heard around the world"" was fired between American colonists and British troops in Lexington, Massachusetts. This began the American War for Independence. Fifteen months later, Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. The Treaty of Paris was signed in September 1783 which ended the war. The colonies were no longer under British rule. Many who fought for the British fled to Canada, the West Indies, and some to England."
The first fleet of convicts sailed from England to Australia on May 13, 1787. By 1868, over 150,000 felons had been exiled to New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, and Western Australia.
English and Irish: habitational name from the county of Kent. The surname is also established in Ireland, where English bearers of this name settled in Meath, in the 13th century. The name has been Gaelicized as Ceannt.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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