George Brent

George Brent (died circa 1699), was a colonial Virginia planter, lawyer, and politician. He represented Stafford County, Virginia in the Virginia General Assembly and secured a refuge for Catholics in the Virginia Colony that became Brentsville, Virginia. Early life Brent was the firstborn son of George Brent and Marianna, the daughter of Sir John Peyton of Doddington on the Isle of Ely. Facing persecution during the English Civil Wars because of their Catholic religion (a sister was a nun in France), his uncle Giles Brent (third son of Richard Brent) and maiden aunts Mary and Margaret Brent had emigrated to Maryland in 1637. However, in the next decade they encountered problems a from rival Protestant trader Richard Ingle as well as the colonial Maryland political establishment, and emigrated across the Potomac River to Stafford County, Virginia. Career Brent emigrated to join his older relatives, and built a plantation at Woodstock, near the plantations they had established. His first wife, Elizabeth Greene of Bermuda, whom he married in 1677, died giving birth to a daughter in 1686. He then married Mary, the widow of Col. William Chandler. She already had several children (one son became a Benedictine priest), and had more with Brent, but only Henry, Mary and Martha lived. Their mother Mary Brent died in 1693 or 1694 giving birth to their last daughter.