Daniel Nimham (1724–1778) was the last chief of the Wappingers and was the most prominent Native American of his time in the Hudson Valley.

The town was first settled by Europeans in the mid-18th century by Zachariah Merritt and others, from New England, Westchester County, or the Fishkill area.

Other early family names were Townsend, Smalley, Kent, Dykeman, Barrett, Cole, Boyd, Wixon, Farrington, Burton, Carter, and Ludington.

[6] The present-day intersection of Interstate 84 and Ludingtonville Road was the home of Col. Henry Ludington and his daughter Sybil, who was said to have ridden 40 miles (64 km) one night in 1777 to call up her father's militia during the American Revolutionary War.

Kent is home to the 82.5-foot-tall (25.1 m) Nimham Mountain Fire Tower, located in the Taconic Hills.

The Chuang Yen Monastery which is home to the largest indoor statue of Buddha in the Western Hemisphere is also located in Kent.

It borders the towns of Philipstown and Putnam Valley to the west and southwest; Patterson to the east, and Carmel to the south.

Two state parks, Wonder Lake[citation needed] in the east and Fahnestock in the west, a portion of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, and thousands of acres of open space under the permanent protection of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, offer recreational opportunities.

Kent is also home to two reservoirs that are part of the New York City water supply system, with much adjacent land purchased by it for conservation through the Watershed Preservation Program.

[clarification needed] These include Boyds Corner and West Branch, with the latter being the east-of-Hudson terminus of the important Catskill/Delaware supply.