Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Dr. (and Governor) Joseph Kent, Executor, sells Brother's Bladensburg Property 1816


Public Sale

               Will positively be sold to the highest bidder, at 12 o'clock, om Saturday the 2d of March next, at Wm. Ross's Tavern, the house and lot in the town of Bladensburg, now in the occupancy of Dr. Fitzgerald.  Its situation is pleasant and healthy, the houses are commodious and either new or lately repaired, consisting of a dwelling-house with three rooms, and a passage on the lower floor, and as many on the upper, a kitchen, stable, meat house, &c.

               No place offers a prospect of greater profit to the retail merchant than Bladensburg: it contains one of the largest Tobacco inspection houses in Prince George;s county, and is surrounded by a thick settled country.

The terms of sale are - one third of the purchase maney to be paid in three one third in six, and the residue in twelve months, with interest - the purchaser to give approved security.[1]

                                                            JOS. KENT,[2]
                                             Ex;r of T. H. Kent.
FEB. 17 - tawtda
               .



[1] Federal Republican; Date: 02-17-1816; Page: [3].

Transcribed by John Peter Thompson March 31, 2013.

[2] see Dr. & Governor Kent: "New Cure for Dysentery Described in Bladensburg, Maryland 1825" MAR, 29, 2013.

Notes from Wikipedia:

"Joseph Kent was elected to the United States Congress in 1810 taking his seat on March 4, 1811 and served several years until March 3, 1815. Though a Federalist, opposing War with Great Britain, he voted with the Republican party in declaring War. He was a Presidential Elector in 1816, casting his vote for James Monroe (1758–1831). He later broke with the Federalist party and by the time of the next election he was a Democratic-Republican, in which he was elected to another term in the House of Representatives from March 4, 1819 until he resigned on January 6, 1826. In his second tenure in Congress, Kent continued as chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia.

Josesph Kent was elected Governor of Maryland in 1826. The primary goal of Kent's administration as governor was to work toward internal improvements. He was in support of improving internal transportation, including expanding the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The immense cost of these projects, however, were never fully repudiated until several decades after Kent's administration, and placed the state under immense financial burden for many years aftwards.

Other areas of interest for Kent included prison reform, separating presidential voting into districts, and for increased funding for schools and colleges. He also sought to improve the maintenance of the state's records, "so indispensably necessary to its correct history" as he said
Kent was elected as a Republican (later Whig) to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1833, until his death at his home, ”Rosemount,” near Bladensburg. He served as chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia (Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses). As senator, Kent was opposed to the Bank of the United States, and offered a resolution asking for negotiations with France regarding lower tobacco prices and restricting the importing of tobacco. However, although this resolution passed, it was not widely popular. Due to ill health, Kent attended only four sessions of the Senate, and died in 1837 as a result of a fall from his horse. He is buried in an unmarked grave at his home of 'Rosemount'"


1 comment:

  1. Governor Kent's brother, Dr. Thomas H. Kent placed the following ad in 1814, the year of his death. It, and the fact that a Dr. Fitzgerald was occupying T.H. Kent's former resident suggests that Bladensburg was a center for medical practitioners

    Daily National Intelligencer, 2/12/1814
    “Dr. Th. H. Kent, of Bladensburg, would be glad to take a young gentleman of good education as a Student of Medicine. Dr. K. has an extensive practice and an excellent library.”

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