Dent/Buck article by Karen

Grant and Harriet (Buck) Dent
By Karen Cuccinello

Grant grew up in Grand Gorge/Roxbury and Harriet in Harpersfield which is only about 16 miles apart but would have been a great distance 150 years ago. They chose a half-way point after they got married and lived in Stamford.
Grant Morris Dent was born October 1872 to Thomas Hollingsworth and Elizabeth (Jenkins) Dent, probably in Grand Gorge as he was three years old there in the 1875 census. Grant attended Grand Gorge School, Stamford Seminary and Oneonta State Normal and taught school for about five years in Meeker Hollow, Scrubville and West Settlement. He then became a farmer. Harriet Maria Buck was born July 14, 1879 in Harpersfield to Noah Josiah and Julia (Howard) Buck. Harriet graduated from Stamford Seminary and Training Class and taught in the Ferris Hill (this is in Grand Gorge) district school, probably until she got married.
Grant and Harriet were married November 5, 1902 at her parents’ home in Harpersfield. They had four children: Helen Elizabeth (Mrs. Hillis Alfred Mallory 1908-1996), Erwin/Irwin born 1910, Joseph Hollingsworth (1916-1997) and Emma Harriet (Mrs. Steven Vamosy 1918-2007). Once in Stamford they had two different homes on Division Street, now called West End, then moved to East Meredith in 1936 and finally Davenport in 1946.
July 6, 1933 Stamford Mirror-Recorder- Two cows were killed and Grant Dent and son, Joseph, received severe shocks when lightning struck the barn during a severe storm. The two men were engaged in milking when the lightning followed a pipe into the barn, killing the cow and stunning another cow and a bull calf, which later recovered.
Harriet died October 28, 1946. She was a member of Coeur de Lion Chapter, Order of Eastern Star, Stamford Baptist Church and a charter member of Utsayantha Grange and member of County, State and National Granges.
Grant, who died January 18, 1955 at age 83, was a founding member, and continued his membership for 58 years, of Utsayantha Grange No. 1313, which began in 1913, and a founding member and first treasurer of the Delaware County Historical Society, which began in 1945. He was a member of Coeur de Lion Masonic Lodge, Roxbury and Grand Gorge Methodist Church. Grant is buried with his wife in Stamford Cemetery (posted on findagrave.com).
Photos from the Stamford Village Library history room.