Author Description

Family histories are evolved slowly, notably so the Bent genealogy. The writer first became interested in the subject at the centennial of his native town in 1885. In the summer of 1888 the 250th anniversary of the arrival of the first Bent in America and the centenary of the birth of Hyman Bent, were celebrated by the descendants of the latter at the ancestral home in Fitzwilliam, N. H. For this gathering a brief account of Hyman Bent's ancestry was prepared and afterwards printed. This encouraged further research, and in the New-England Historical and Genealogical Register for July, 1894, appeared a short account of the first four generations of Bents in America.