James Fluker Kent
James Fluker Kent was born January 17, 1843, the second of twelve children and the oldest son of Amos and Susan Fluker Kent of Kentwood, Louisiana. He died August 18, 1886.
His father, Amos Kent, was the son of a New Hampshire lawyer of the same name, who studied at Harvard and read law in the office of William Gordon, Attorney General of the state of New Hampshire. That Amos Kent, of Chester, New Hampshire, who was Amos’ father, and James Fluker Kent’s grandfather, died in New Hampshire when Amos was eighteen, leaving him unable to support his large family. He left New Hampshire, and arrived in New Orleans in 1828, and found work in Baton Rouge initially as a teacher, then opened a small mercantile business with his brother, Frederick. The business failed in the depression of 1836, and using his political connections with the Franklin Pierce administration through his mother’s family, he obtained a position in the Land Office at Greensburg, Louisiana, where he met and married Susan Fluker, the daughter of Col. Robert Fluker, a veteran of the Battle of New Orleans. Later Amos moved to an area Northeast of Greensburg after purchasing the John Tate headright, which included most of what later became the town of Kentwood. He settled there on Cool’s creek, and built a sawmill and brick factory in an area which became known as Kent’s Mill. Later, when the town was developed, it was named Kentwood, in honor of old Amos Kent.
James Fluker Kent married, on the 26th of December, 1839, Delilah Flanagan Amacker of Kentwood, the daughter of Nathaniel and Mosilla Pearson Amacker, of Kentwood, Louisiana. Her brother, Obadiah Pearson Amacker later married James Fluker Kent’s sister, Abigail Means Kent, in 1864.
James Fluker Kent grew up in Kentwood, and worked in his father’s brick factory. In 1860, his father sent him to Alexandria, Louisiana, to attend the Louisiana Seminary for Learning, a military-style college founded in 1860, which later became Louisiana State University. Fluker Kent was in the first class. The Superintendent was an ex-army Major named William Tecumseh Sherman.
Fluker left the school, like most of the other students there, when the war broke out, and joined the Confederate Army on September 28, 1861, at Camp Moore, Louisiana, where he became Fourth Sergeant of Company F, the St. Helena Rebels. By 1862, he was the Second Lieutenant of the Company, but missed part of the year due to illness. He returned to duty in time to be captured at Missionary Ridge in November of 1863.
Fluker was forwarded to Louisville for exchange, but no exchange took place, and he spent the remainder of the war at Johnson Island, Ohio, as a POW.
He signed, in October 1864, along with two other officers, a request in the form of a petition to Col. Charles W. Hill, commandant of the prison camp, asking for an increase of rations for the prisoners. The response to that petition, if any, has not been found.
After the war, Fluker Kent returned to Kentwood, resuming operation of the brick factory for his father, among other interests, including agriculture.
Fluker and Lilah Kent built a home near his father’s home on Cool Creek, north of Kentwood, and had twelve children.
