A One-Name Study for the BARNUM/BARNHAM Surname
From the Putnam Country Courier, Carmel, New York, Thursday Afternoon, May 4, 1944: The sudden death early Sunday morning of Towner Kent at his residence in Patterson came as a shock to the entire community. He suffered a heart attack shortly after midnight and died less than an hour after the attack. He was 63 years old. Mr. Kent was born in Patterson, October 15, 1880, a son of the late James Elihu and Mary Alice (Towner) Kent.
Mr. Kent was a descendant of two families whose ancestry in this country dates back before the Revolution, and several generations have occupied a prominent place in the business, political, religious and social life of this section for over a century and a half.
On his paternal side his ancestry dates back to Elihu Kent, who was born in 1749 and lived in that part of the Philipse Patent which became Frederickstown in 1788, and in the division of 1795, the town of Fredericks, which in 1817 was given the name of the town of Kent, after the family which had been prominent there so long. One of the six children of Elihu Kent was David Kent, the grandfather of Towner Kent, and he purchased a farm near Ludingtonville at the age of 19, which was his home until his death. He was active in many business enterprises and was one of the organizers and the first president of the Putnam County Bank and of the Bank of Kent.
The mother of Towner Kent was Mary A. Towner, a daughter of Samuel Towner, whose family history dates back to a Samuel Towner, who, at the age of 27, was given a lease by Beverly Robinson in 1773 for a tract of 269 acres of land at Towners in the present town of Patterson. After the confiscation of the Robinson property by the state following the Revolution this same tract was sold by the Commissioners of Forfeitures to Samuel Towner, and these colonial documents have always been highly prized by the family.
He attended Hotchkiss School at Lakeville, Conn., was graduated from Yale University in the class of 1906 and attended Columbia Law School and was admitted to the New State state bar. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity.
He was married to Josephine B. Pugsley on June 24th, 1916, and the first eight years of their married life was spent on their farm on Route 22 east of town. After selling the farm, he was connected with the Hudson Valley Title Mortgage Guaranty Company, also at White Plains.
He was a member of the Harlem Valley Masonic Lodge No. 827, serving as Master in 1919. Masonic services were held at his late home on Monday evening. He was one of the founders of the local Dairymen's League and a member of the Holstein Friesian Association.
He united with the Presbyterian church twenty-six years ago and was an elder of the church and clerk of the session for about a quarter of a century and had been superintendent of Sunday school for the past twenty years.
He is survived by his wife; niece Mrs. R. Leslie Ward, who has made her home with him since babyhood; one uncle William Towner; and a number of cousins. Interment was made in the family plot in the Four Corners Baptist cemetery at Towners.
A Research Guide to the Genealogy of the Barnum/Barnam/Barnham Family Worldwide
AncientFaces - Family History Photos
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