Silas Bent III was a naval officer in the United States Navy before the American Civil War. Silas Bent sailed both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and was recognized by the Navy for his contributions to oceanography published by the Navy. Silas Bent resigned his commission at the outset of the American Civil War, as his sympathy was for the Southern cause.

Silas Bent Jr. was an American land surveyor, attorney, and jurist who served as a Judge of the Missouri Supreme Court from 1817 to 1821. His son, Charles Bent, was a fur trader and appointed as the first territorial governor of New Mexico during the United States invasion of Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Three of his other sons William, George, and Robert had been in business with Charles and built Bent's Old Fort and other outposts of trade in the American Southwest.