KENT, Thomas D., MS., then Lafourche Parish, Louisiana
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Whitehead & Kent, planters, Thibodeaux, La.  N. W. Whitehead and Thomas D.
Kent, who are numbered among the prosperous and very successful planters of La
Fourche parish, La., are the owners of Abbey and Highland plantations, among
the most productive and skillfully managed of any plantations in the parish. 
These gentlemen purchased the former plantation in 1885 and the latter two
years later, since which time many and vast improvements have been made on
them.  Two years ago they put in a double mill, the sugar vacuum pans, and
last year they made 1,250,000 pounds of sugar.  They are spending a great deal
of their time in improving and clearing their plantations and with what
success may be inferred by a glance over their broad acres.  N. W. Whitehead
was born in East Feliciana parish, thirty-eight years ago, or on April 26,
1852, and is a son of Joseph and M. J. (Cobb) Whitehead.  The father is still
living and resides in Chester, Tenn., where he follows the occupation of a
cotton planter.  He resided in different sections of Louisiana until 1875 or
1876 and then moved to the Lone Star state, where he has since made his home. 
During the Civil war he served in the Fourth Louisiana infantry and was in
many battles east of the Mississippi river.  He was a heavy loser by that
eventful struggle.  N. W. Whitehead spent his boyhood days at Clinton and in
the Daniel's Academy in St. Helena parish.  On growing up he commenced his
career as a planter and this has continued to be his chosen occupation since. 
He came to La Fourche parish in 1871, commenced as overseer for John Williams,
and in 1885, he and Thomas D. Kent purchased Abbey plantation.  Two years
later they purchased Highland plantation.  They have exhibited unusual faculty
for management, and pleasant and agreeable as they are in business affairs
they are equally so in social life.  Mr. Whitehead was married in 1882 to Miss
P. I. Tompkins, daughter of Dr. Tompkins, and the fruits of this union were
four children.  Mr. Whitehead and wife are members of the Episcopal church,
and Mr. Whitehead is vestryman in the same.  He has shown his appreciation of
secret organizations by becoming a member of the  I. O. O. F., the A. F. & A.M., 
the K. of H. and the K. of P.  He is a democrat in politics and takes a
great deal of interest in elections.  He and Mr. Kent have a plantation store
and are doing a fairly good business.  Thomas D. Kent, junior member of the
above mentioned firm, was born in----county, Miss., in 1848, and is the son of
Jesse T. and T. C. (De Almond) Kent, natives of Georgia and Tennessee,
respectively.  Both are now deceased.  They were married in Mississippi and
remained in that state until 1852, when they moved to Baton Rouge.  They
subsequently moved from there to Livingston parish and there received their
final summons.  The father was a cotton planter and followed that occupation
up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1887 at the age of
seventy-three years.  The mother died in 1861 at the age of forty-six years. 
Both were church members, he a member of the Baptist and she of the Methodist. 
Thomas D. was the sixth of ten children, and received his education in the
country schools and in the schools of Baton Rouge.  Soon after the war he
branched out as a planter in Baton Rouge parish, where he remained until 1873,
and then came to La Fourche parish.  There he became overseer for John
Williams and other individuals.  His first purchase in the way of a plantation
was in 1885, when he formed a partner ship with Mr. Whitehead.  In 1879 Mr.
Kent was married to Miss Fanny Carver, of Assumption parish and to them has
been born one child, a daughter.  Mrs. Kent is a member of the Catholic
church.  Mr. Kent holds membership in the A. F. & A. M., the K. of P. and the
I. O. O. F., being noble grand of the last named order.  In politics he is a
stanch democrat.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 452. 
Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.


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