Editing Kent, New York (section)

==History==
Kent was part of the [[Highland Patent]] of 1697 today known as the ''Philipse Patent''), when it was still populated by the [[Wappinger]] tribe. [[Daniel Nimham]] (1724–1778) was the last chief of the Wappingers and was the most prominent [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] of his time in the [[Hudson Valley]].

Upon the 1751 death of [[Frederick Philipse II]], second Lord of [[Philipsburg Manor]] and owner of the "Highland Patent", the Manor went to his son [[Frederick Philipse III]] and the Patent was divided among his four remaining offspring.  Following the death of daughter [[Margaret Philipse (1733-1752)|Margaret]] in 1752, who died intestate, the Patent was then redivided among the three surviving heirs, son [[Philip Philipse (1724–1768)|Philip]], and daughters [[Susannah Philipse|Susannah]] (wife of [[Beverley Robinson]]) and [[Mary Philipse|Mary]] (future wife of [[Roger Morris (British Army officer)|Col. Roger Morris]]).  The tract was geographically split in 1754 into [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Map_of_Philipse_Patent_%28showing_the_Oblong_and_Gore%29.png nine Lots]: three on the river, three in the interior, and three on the eastern border abutting [[The Oblong]]. Each of the three heirs inherited a lot in each division;<ref>Pelletreau, William, S, ''History of Putnam County, New York &ndash; With Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men'', W.W. Preston & Company, Philadelphia, 1886 https://archive.org/details/historyofputnamc00pell ''History of Putnam County, New York''</ref><ref name=French>French's Gazetteer of the State of New York (1860): “The Philipses Patent… divided among the remaining three [children]  Philip… Susannah married to Beverly Robinson, and Mary married to Col. Roger Morris. On the 7th of Feb 1754, the patent was divided into 9 lots: 3, each 4 mi. square, bordering upon the Hudson and denominated ‘water lots;’ 3, each 4 mi. wide by 12 long, extending N. and S. across the patent, and denominated ‘long lots;’ 3, each 4 mi. square, upon the E. border denominated ‘back lots.’ Philip, Susannah and Mary Philipse each owned one of each kind of lots.</ref> most of Kent fell into Mary's interior lot.

The town was first settled by Europeans in the mid-18th century by Zachariah Merritt and others, from [[New England]], [[Westchester County, New York|Westchester County]], or the [[Fishkill (town), New York|Fishkill]] area. Elisha Cole and his wife Hannah Smalley built [[Coles Mills, New York|Coles Mills]] in 1748, having moved to that location the previous year from [[Cape Cod]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.hyzercreek.com/cole.htm|title = Search}}</ref>  Around this same time the northeastern part of the county was settled by the Kent, Townsend, and [[Ludington family|Ludington]] families, among others. The father of Hannah Smalley and his family moved to Kent about two years before Elisha Cole and his family.<ref>"The Descendants of Elisha Cole", compiled by Joseph O. Curtis, 1909</ref>

Kent was a part of the Frederickstown Precinct which was chartered in 1772, the rest of Frederickstown consisting of the future town of [[Carmel, New York|Carmel]] and the western parts of the future towns of [[Patterson, New York|Patterson]] and [[Southeast, New York|Southeast]]. Other early family names were Townsend, Smalley, Kent, Dykeman, Barrett, Cole, Boyd, Wixon, Farrington, Burton, and Carter.<ref>The 1866 Beers map http://www.hyzercreek.com/Kent.jpg</ref>

The present-day intersection of [[Interstate 84 (east)|Interstate 84]] and Ludingtonville Road was the home of Col. [[Henry Ludington]] and his daughter [[Sybil Ludington|Sybil]], who was said to have ridden {{convert|40|mi}} one night in 1777 to call up her father's militia during the [[American Revolutionary War]]. A statue of her stands on the shores of [[Lake Gleneida]] in the [[Carmel Hamlet, New York|hamlet of Carmel]] across from the Putnam County Courthouse.

When the towns of Carmel and Patterson were split from Frederickstown in 1795, the remnant, constituting the current Kent, was established as the "Town of Frederick". As with its adjacent towns, it was part of [[Dutchess County, New York|Dutchess County]] until [[Putnam County, New York|Putnam County]] was established in 1812. The town's name was changed to "Kent" in 1817. A small portion of the town of [[Philipstown, New York|Philipstown]] geographically more accessible via Kent than it was transferred to Kent in 1877.

The major population center of the township is [[Lake Carmel, New York|Lake Carmel]], a settlement around an artificial lake of the same name developed in the 1920s and expanded dramatically in the last quarter of the 20th and first quarter of the 21st centuries. Historically the population centers had been Farmer's Mills and Luddingtonville, little of which remain, and Cole's Mills, hobbled when its mills' water supply became inadequate due to the early 1870s upstream construction of [[Boyds Corner Reservoir]] for the [[New York City water supply system]],<ref>Mount Nimham: The Ridge of Patriots, Thomas F. Maxson, p. 88. In 1874, according to the Putnam County Courier, Theodore Frelinghuysen Cole of Cole's Mills sued New York City for $10,000 in damages due to the Boyds Corner Reservoir dam causing the stoppage of water from the Croton River to his four mills.</ref> and shuttered in 1888 due to construction of [[West Branch Reservoir|West Branch]] reservoir (a tip of which lying in Kent submerged it completely by 1895). 

Much of early Kent's economy was based on [[dairy farming]] for the New York City market, but with flooding associated with reservoir creation many farms were submerged, the dairy industry disturbed, and both farming and dairying were all but abandoned by the 1920s. At that point increased mobility thanks to the advent of the automobile started to attract new residents from the city, initially as weekend and summer visitors, then over time permanent dwellers.

The town is served by the Carmel Central School District and, for the majority of residents, by the Carmel Post Office. Kent is home to the {{convert|82.5|ft|m|adj=mid|-tall}} Nimham Mountain Fire Tower, located in the Taconic Hills. Built by the State of New York and the [[Civilian Conservation Corps|CCC]] in 1940, it is the tallest remaining [[fire tower]] in New York state and appears on the [[National Historic Lookout Register]]. The [[Chuang Yen Monastery]] which is home to the largest indoor statue of Buddha in the Western Hemisphere, is also located in Kent.