Early Life
Some sources (e.g. the
Dictionary of National Biography1) give
John Hart's birth as c.1690, but his father died in 1680/81 so a more likely date would have been 1680 or earlier (Ancestry trees seem to have settled on 1679). He was born in
Crobert/Crover, County Cavan, Ulster, to
Merrick Hart of Crover and
Lettice Vesey, daughter of the Venerable
Thomas Vesey. John's maternal uncle was Archbishop John Vesey.
Career
Many accounts say that
John served in Spain and Portugal during the war of the Spanish succession (1701-1714) but there is very limited information on John's life. He certainly served as the 12
th Royal Governor of Maryland from 1714–1715 (nominated by Queen Anne); his time in Maryland started on the 1
st of January 1713/14, when Lord Bolingbroke (the secretary of state) directed that a commission be drafted for Hart and with this, Hart set sail from England and arrived in Maryland on the 29
th of May 1714. John continued as the 12
th Proprietary Governor of Maryland from 1715–1720, after the restoration of proprietary control to Charles Calvert, 5
th Baron Baltimore.
After his time in Maryland, many accounts
2,3 say that John was appointed governor of the Leeward Islands (an administrative region which, incidentally, included Nevis, home of
Walter Nisbet, the husband of John's grand-daughter
Anne Parry). An example of this theory comes from
Notes & Queries (Jan 1897):
John Hart. On 9 May 1721, the king nominated him Governor of the Leeward Islands, and he arrived at his seat of government on 19 December following. He was at continual variance with the House of Assembly of Antigua as to his salary, and at one time removed his family to the neighbouring island of St Kitts. In 1725 various petitions were presented against him and he was replaced by the Earl of Londonderry, sailing for England on 14 June 1727.
John eventually moved back to England and settled in his later years at Warfield Hall in Berkshire (see below), where he was known as "Governor Hart" (see his will).
Family Life
John married his first cousin once removed,
Mary Hart (or possibly Anne - see her entry for some discussion of who she was), daughter of
Henry Hart and
Anne Beresford; she was his first cousin once removed. They had two children:
- Thomas, born 1713, who married the heiress Jane Cotton
- Marylandia, born 1716, who married Robert Parry
Death
John Hart died in 1739 or 1740 - his will was proved on the 26
th of January that year. In that document, he gives to his daughter Marylandia a portion of the estate of her mother (his late wife Mary) plus £5,000 - which would be worth around £600,000 today - payable on the date of her marriage. All his properties in England, Ireland and plantations abroad (Maryland?, Antigua?) he gave to his son Thomas. Many contemporary transcriptions of John's will state his place of residence as "Wardstick" but this is clearly a mis-reading of the handwriting, which actually reads "
Wardfield".
Residences
- Warfield Hall was originally built in the 1730s, presumbably commissioned by John himself. It later passed to his son Thomas and so into the Hart-Cotton family. However, for some reason it then went laterally to the Parry family (i.e. through John's daughter's marriage to Robert Parry) and remained in that line until 1831 when it was sold to Sir John Malcolm.
Footnotes
[1]
Dictionary of National Biography
[2]
The Family History of Hart of Donegal, by Henry Travers Hart, London, 1907, page 37 and also Betham's pedigree quoted on page 100
[3] e.g.
Notes & Queries, Jan 1897, Jul 1897, Nov 1896
[4]
Archives of Maryland
[5]
American Historical Association
[6]
The History of the Island of Antigua, Volume 2, page 67 seems to confuse John Hart with a different person of the same name who died in Antigua in 1759. By Volume 3 (p. 427) the author seems to have realised that these were different people and quotes elements of the "right" John Hart's will from 1740
Abt 1680 - 1740 (~ 60 years)
