Colonel Giles Brent arrived in Maryland from England in 1638. He became Lt. Governor, Lord of the Manor at Kent Fort, Magistrate and Chief Captain of the Providence of Maryland. He married Kittamaquad, a Native American Piscataway Princess. At the death of her father, Brent claimed all Piscataway lands, which was most of Maryland. After a futile fight with Lord Baltimore over the land, Brent eventually came to “Brent’s Point” in Stafford near the junction of Aquia Creek and the Potomac River. He called his plantation “Peace.”

Giles welcomed people of all faiths to his settlement of Aquia and was instrumental in establishing the Brent Town settlement for Huguenots in what is now Prince William and Fauquier counties.

He became one of the County’s first permanent settlers and started the first Catholic Settlement in Virginia. Brent continued to patent land from present day Arlington to Westmoreland County but lived and died in Stafford County.