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From: Crilley <>
Subject: [NCBERTIE-L] Thomas HART
Date: Sun, 2 May 99 09:36:16 CST

I know there was a Thomas HART in Bertie....does this VA Hart connect with
anyone??

From: (MS LOUISE T OVERTON)
To:
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Subject: [NCROOTS-L] Col Thomas HART of Orange Co. NC
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Thomas HART born in Hanover Co. Virginia

The genial, gregarious HART was a daring land speculator and a born gambler
who delighted in taking long chances. Usually he was enormously successful,
a Midas with the golden touch.

In Orange County he married Susannah GRAY, daughter of Col. John GRAY.
Thomas HART inherited Grayfields (Moorefields), set up a mercantile
business in Childsburg with Edmund FANNING, swiftly ingratiated himself
with the most considerable men of Hillsbourgh, New Bern, and eastern North
Carolina, acquired lucrative appointments, lands, and power, and built up
his new Hartford Plantation as both a political and industrial base.

Joseph MADDOCK's old grist mill under the new ownership of HART became a
nucleus for a sizeable village of Mills, Manufactories, a saw mill, a oil
tannery with a large storehouse, a blacksmith shop, and a cobbler's shop
from which wagons regularly took loads of shoes into Hillsborough, plus a
veritable army of skilled workmen, both black and white, carpenters,
painters, brickmasons, tanners, cobblers, smiths, weavers, and etc. all
with Robert NELSON, a McGowan's Creek neighbor, as overseer and manager.
Besides these various industries, there were also the stables, the dwelling
house, which was a rambling yellow frame house, still survives today. A
kitchen, a wash house, a smoke-house, a ice house, the garden, MADDOCK's
very considerable old orchard, the mill-dam and pond, and the plantation itself.

It is no surprise to find in the 1779 Tax List that Col. Thomas HART in
that year was the wealthiest man in Orange County, with an assessed worth
of L70,431.2.

Thomas HART was sheriff of Orange Co in 1763 and 1768; a lieutenant colonel
in the Orange Co. Militia; a delegate to three Provincial Congresses in
1774 and 1775; a Commissary Officer with the rank of Colonel for Orange,
Caswell, and Granville Counties; a member of the Colonial Legislature
1773-1775; a vestryman of St. Matthew's Parish, and a senator in the
General Assembly of 1777.
In November 1780 HART left Hillsborough and his plantation "Hartford" in
haste, never to return. Reason unknown.

Will of Thomas HART (son of Thomas HART Sr)

Orange Co. NC
Will Book E
Page 222
Written 7 May 1827
Probated May Court 1830

Thomas HART Sr.
says he is "weak of body"
son: Fin HART
daughters: Rebecca and Susannah to receive all of his land.
Exe: son Fin HART and Thomas McCRACKEN
Wit: John HART and John W. McCRACKEN
Signed with a (X)

Battle at HART's Mill 1781, much damage done by the British to the mill and
home of Thomas HART.

Sources:
Orange County NC Historical Society
1830 Orange Co. Will of Thomas HART
Orange Co. Deed Books 1-2-3
Orange Co. Deed Books by Mary B. Warren
10 Nov 1767 deed Joseph Maddock to Thomas Hart
Eno Journal, Vol 7 Special Issue, 1979, pages 52-60
Virginia

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• [NCBERTIE-L] Thomas HART by Crilley <>