James Peter Kent

Kent family tombstone at Minden Cemetery; there are small markers for Mayor Kent's two sons and a daughter-in-law but no individual designations for Kent or his wife.

This article also includes a biographical sketch of Kent's successor as mayor, Alexander McIntyre Leary.

James Peter Kent, Sr., known as J. P. Kent (January 1866 – April 27, 1937),^[1] was a newspaper publisher and Democratic politician in his adopted city of Minden in Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana.

Kent biographical sketch

An Alabama native,^[1] Kent was from 1894 to 1917 the editor and publisher of the long since defunct Minden Signal-Democrat,^[2] a four-page weekly issued in Minden on Fridays. Kent purchased the paper from Thomas Wafer Fuller, a later state senator who then bought it back after Kent entered the Louisiana House of Representatives.^[3] During a portion of Kent's tenure with The Signal-Democrat, the publication was in competition with T. J. Tabor's former Banner of Liberty newspaper, a four-page weekly released each Thursday.^[4]

John Agan, the official Webster Parish historian, described Kent in a 2002 article as almost a "walking conflict of interest" because Kent held public printing contracts for the municipality of Minden, the Webster Parish School Board, and the Webster Parish Police Jury, the parish governing board akin to county commissions in other states. Kent was also at times an elected member of both the Minden City Council and the school board.^[5] rom 1916 to 1920, Kent served for one term in the Louisiana House of Representatives during the administration of Governor Ruffin Pleasant.^[6] Earlier from 1899 to 1903, he had been the mayor of Minden.

Mayor Alexander McIntyre Leary

Kent was succeeded as mayor by Minden native Alexander McIntyre "A. M." Leary (April 30, 1873 – September 19, 1937), who received a Bachelor of Arts in 1894 from Richmond College, subsequently the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. ^[7] Leary was engaged in the cotton business in Minden. As mayor, his administration is remembered for letting out the bids for construction of the city water-works system.^[8]

In 1896, Leary was employed in Shreveport with the wholesale grocery firm, the Hicks Company, for whom he was a salesman for twelve years. He then joined his father, William Penn Leary, Sr. (1847-1930), in the grain business in Shreveport and was an agent for Travelers' Insurance Company. In 1933, Leary was appointed district appraiser for the Home Owners Loan Corporation in Shreveport; in 1935, he became the HOLC district manager with duties over the seven parishes of Louisiana's 4th congressional district. He was a delegate to several Democratic state conventions and worked in the 1932 campaign to elect Franklin D. Roosevelt as U.S. President.^[7]

Leary and his wife, the former Mary Ellen Van Lear (1877-1953), had six children, all deceased. The oldest son, Matthew Van Lear Leary (1903-1988), was named for his grandfather, the pastor at the turn of the 20th century of the First Presbyterian Church of Shreveport. Van Lear Leary was a pioneer in aviation, the operator of the first airline in and out of Little Rock, Arkansas, New Orleans, and Shreveport, and worked in radio with W. K. Henderson in the early days of KWKH in Shreveport.^[9] The oldest daughter, Isabella Atkinson Leary (1912-1998), was the first woman deacon at the First Presbyterian Church of Shreveport.^[10] Leary himself was Southern Baptist, and pastor Monroe E. Dodd of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport, officiated at Leary's funeral, held in the family home in Shreveport.^[7] Leary was a cousin of earlier Minden Mayor McIntyre H. Sandlin and U.S. Representative John N. Sandlin of Minden. Nicholas J. Sandlin, the father of McIntyre and John Sandlin, was his uncle by marriage.

Kent and Leary died in 1937, five months apart. Kent is interred at Minden Cemetery;^[1] Leary, at Greenwood Cemetery in Shreveport.^[7]

References