John Hart

John Hart was born about 1711 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and became a substantial farmer and landowner near what is now Hopewell. He served for many years in the colonial assembly, opposed the Stamp Act, and in 1776 became speaker of the new state assembly and a member of the Continental Congress. He signed the Declaration of Independence. That December, as British and Hessian troops overran New Jersey, Hart had to leave his farm. His wife, Deborah, was already ill and died around that time; the house and lands were damaged, and he spent the winter moving from place to place. He returned in 1777 and tried to restore his property, but his own health failed. Hart died in 1779. Later retellings sometimes turn his flight into a year of living in caves; the documented core is simpler and hard enough: a public man driven from home in a civil war, who came back and did not long survive.

See also: Signers of the Declaration · Richard Stockton · John Witherspoon · Francis Hopkinson · Abraham Clark