Josiah Bent

Josiah Bent

Josiah Bent was an American manufacturer and founder of the Bent's Cracker Bakery producing crackers.

Background

Josiah Bent was born on April 26, 1771, at Milton, Massachusetts, the son of John and Hannah (Coller) Bent. The father, a Revolutionary soldier, had been among those who responded to the Lexington alarm and had taken part in the siege of Boston.

Career

Josiah, the eldest of eight children, was a Milton farmer until the age of thirty, but like many Yankees of his generation was little interested in agriculture and sought to escape into manufacturing. His name is associated with the manufacture of water-crackers which appear to have been "made first in this country" by him. Beginning with the Dutch oven of his own home in 1801 and peddling the crackers himself, he continued with a constantly increasing output until he retired in 1830.

These crackers, made simply of flour and water, without salt or shortening, and baked in Dutch ovens by the heat of hard wood fagots, became almost a household necessity in New England and attained an international reputation. Almost a century later they were still made by hand, and by essentially the same process.

While his neighbor manufacturers were turning to textile manufacturing he continued to bake crackers. After his retirement in 1830 he served as representative in the state legislature for one term, 1832-1833. Bent died in 1836.

https://prabook.com/web/josiah.bent/1087437

Information from North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000

Josiah Best (John, Ebenezer, Joseph, Joseph, John), cracker baker, was born April 26, 1771, in Milton, Mass., where he died April 26, 1836, at 65. He was representative to the Legislature in 1833.

In 1801, he began with one oven in his house the manufacture of Bent’s water crackers, which have done more, probably, than anything else to make the name of Bent known, for the crackers have been sent to all parts of our country and to foreign shores. He continued the manufacture until 1830, when he sold the business to his son-in-law, Deacon Samuel Adams, and his son Samuel T. Bent.

From 1837 to 1871, Deacon Adams was sole proprietor; in the latter year, he leased the business to Samuel T. Bent, Horatio Webster, John A. Shaw, George A. Fletcher, and William H. Balcom. At the expiration of the lease, five years later, he again leased it for a similar term; but, during the interval viz. in 1879, he died, devising the property to George A. Webster and Granville J. Young. In 1890, the business was sold to the New York Biscuit Co., who still continue the manufacture in Milton under the name of Bent & Co., though they have move from the old location to a new building nearer the railroad station. In June 1892, George H. Bent, son of Samuel T., after many years service with Bent & Co., began the manufacture of the G.H. Bent & Co. water cracker.

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61157/images/46155_b290417-00118?pId=3333426

Information from Milton cracker company going strong since 1801

By Clara Silverstein Globe Correspondent, November 13, 2012, 6:00 p.m.

The company started in 1801 and is credited with coining the term cracker. According to the National Register plaque outside the building, company founder Josiah Bent baked biscuits that made a cracking sound as they cooled. He named them Bent Water Crackers and sold them from his saddlebag to ship merchants in Boston Harbor. Business grew and the product line expanded. During the Civil War, the Bent family made hardtack for Union soldiers, who nicknamed these tough flour-and-water crackers "sheet iron" and "tooth dullers." The founder's grandson, George H. Bent, moved the business to its current location on Pleasant Street in 1891.

Before he bought the company from longtime owner Gene Pierotti, Davis worked as a general contractor and went to Bent's for morning coffee. He had to take a crash course in baking as well as running the machinery. "If you asked me five years ago if I'd be standing in front of an oven, I would have laughed at you," says Davis. "But I'm a hands-on kind of guy. It's very physical lifting 50-pound bags of flour and dumping them into the mixer."

With its wooden floor, brick oven, and door leading to what was once the wood pile, the bakery looks every bit its age. To make common crackers, Jim Davis, co-owner of G.H. Bent Co., mixes a yeast dough and lets it rise overnight. He adds extra flour by the handful, then feeds clumps of dough into a sheeter to flatten it. Parchment paper underneath the machine catches dough that falls out. Once it is about ½-inch thick, Davis carries a long strip to a conveyor belt, which flattens it again. A die stamps out seven crackers at a time in a loud one-two rhythm

Assistant baker Ian Hildred picks up excess dough and slides finished rounds onto a wooden peel. A gas-powered oven with rotating shelves bakes a batch in about 12 minutes. Hildred uses the peel to transfer warm, lightly brown crackers to baskets lined with parchment. The next day, workers hand pack the crackers. Bent's can only turn out about 3,900 common crackers at a time and though historic crackers only account for about 15 percent of Davis's business, they have a loyal clientele. Civil War reenactors regularly order hardtack, as do teachers, museums, and gift shops.

People cook with the crackers, too. One customer developed a recipe that calls for layering hardtack with sliced onions, tomatoes, and green peppers, along with liberal sprinklings of oil and vinegar. Others report crushing crackers as a topping for macaroni and cheese and other casseroles.

For customer Charlotte Vayo, a 79-year-old great-grandmother who grew up in Chelmsford and raised her family in Middleborough, there is no substitute. "My mother and grandmother made stuffing with common crackers. The stuffing you grew up with is what you want."

Davis, who lives near Bent's and is raising three children, always lets his mother and sister make their own turkey stuffing. "But if I do ever host Thanksgiving, I'm going to make the common cracker stuffing for everyone," he says.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2012/11/13/milton-cracker-company-going-strong-since/GUwmA6sJHn1UoEKREK6TkM/story.html

Information from the article: Brick and Tree - The History of Newburyport’s Famous Bread, Hardtack

Milton, Massachusetts is the birthplace of the ‘cracker’. A Josiah Bent in 1801 found that his bread invention crackled when put to a hot fire, thus he created the cracker. What Newburyport invented was hardtack. The dictionary says the following, ‘Hardtack / ˈhärdˌtak/ • n. hard dry bread or biscuit, esp. as rations for sailors. It is also called pilot biscuit, pilot bread, sea biscuit and ship biscuit. The truth is that some form of hardtack has been around since the days of Alexander the Great and perhaps earlier. Armies would make a bread out of flour and water only, unleavened and unsalted. Since it was very dry, it could be stored and transported without refrigeration. It was inexpensive to make and the bread itself could endure extreme temperature shifts. Over the years, many nations used this form of dry bread as a convenient food for soldiers, explorers and pioneers. The name derives from the British sailor slang for food, “tack” and was coined by American sailors during the War of 1812 and the term spread to soldiers and pioneers later.

https://brickandtree.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/the-history-of-newburyports-famous-bread-hardtack/