Moses Hart

For the founder of a Jewish synagogue in London, see Moses Hart (1675-1756).

Moses Hart (November 26, 1768 – October 15, 1852) was a Canadian businessman and seigneur, eldest son of Aaron Hart.

Biography

Early life

Moses Hart was born in Trois-Rivières to Aaron Hart and Dorothea Judah.

Hart took his first initiatives at Nicolet, which he was pleased to call Hartville. However, it was at William Henry that his career began in earnest. He ran a general store in this strategic post located at the start of the road to New York. His trade was with England as well as with the United States. He remained there for nearly a decade, until his father's death in 1800. That year he returned to Trois-Rivières to take up residence.

Political career

He soon conceived the notion of getting himself elected to the House of Assembly. In 1796 he issued an appeal to the voters in William Henry. His father was worried and tried to get him to change his mind, saying he will most likely be opposed because of his Jewish religion. Hart never gave up his desire for a political career. In 1809 he attempted to succeed his brother Ezekiel in the riding of Trois-Rivières but had to concede the election to Mathew Bell and Joseph Badeaux. He ran again in Saint-Maurice in 1819 and in Upper Town, Quebec, the following year. Finally, at the age of 75, he made a new attempt in Trois-Rivières against Edward Greive, and then another in Nicolet against Antoine-Prosper Méthot; both times he was beaten and contested the election of his opponents.

Having failed to get elected, Hart tried to secure appointment to the Executive and Legislative councils. Hence his numerous letters to political leaders such as Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and to governors such as Sir Charles Theophilus Metcalfe. Looking beyond honours, Hart aspired to bring about numerous reforms. He found a number of laws intolerable. Many French laws revolted him, and Hart was equally critical of the place of the French language in public affairs.

Year after year, his letters to various correspondents included precise details about possible reforms, and he even drafted a code of laws. He also worked out a proposal for a penitentiary, preparing a budget to cover construction and operational costs and an outline of regulations. He sometimes proposed the reduction of certain punishments, suggested the appointment of several English magistrates, and denounced legal costs he thought too high. His innumerable grievances against the legal system in general did not, however, prevent him from making extensive use of the courts. A partial list established for the period 1799–1824 shows that judicial decisions were pronounced every year for cases in which he was concerned. In 1822 and 1823 he obtained at least 28 different judgements against people of various origins and professions, even including members of his own family.

Business career

Hart was beyond doubt eccentric, but he was a shrewd businessman. Between 1795 and 1835 he had dealings with 21 large English firms and also with a company whose head office was in Glasgow. He traded in a wide range of items. Until his father's death, Hart used the firm of Aaron Hart and Sons as his usual middle man. But after 1800 he established relations with a network of British agents and avoided the agents at Montreal, Quebec, New York, and Halifax. He also frequently used personal friends, and he took advantage of his family ties with his uncle George Joel from 1807 to 1818 and with his cousin Judah Joseph from 1803 to 1834.

He invested in many banks, such as the Bank of Montreal the Quebec Bank, the Bank of Canada, and the City Bank. Steam navigation fascinated Hart as much as banking. He is reputed to have quickly decided to compete with the PS Accommodation, which John Molson had launched in 1809. In 1824 Hart offered to buy from John Molson the Telegraph, a ship belonging to John Molson and Sons. Molson considered the proposal absurd, but when Hart insisted, he demanded £2,150 for the boat and its engine and Hart’s agreement to refrain from any activity that would put him in competition with the Molsons, although he did not keep the agreement.

In May 1833 Hart and John Miller bought the Lady Aylmer, built in the Port of Quebec in 1831. Hart made over his shares in the ship, amounting to 50 per cent, on May 30, 1833 to Alexander Thomas Hart, one of his adopted sons. The relations between Alexander and Miller proved difficult, and several differences between the joint owners in 1834 and 1835 brought them before the courts. Hart and his son then acquired another vessel, the steamship Toronto. They rented it to interested parties in 1839 and operated the Hart, which they built in 1840 and sold by auction on March 27, 1845. In partnership with his son Alexander Thomas and with his nephew Ira Craig Hart, Moses remained active in the shipping business and from time to time in shipbuilding.

In the early 1820s he owned a good many properties in almost all the townships behind the seigneuries on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence. More important were the fiefs and seigneuries belonging to him totally or in part. Around Quebec he owned the seigneuries of Grondines, Bélair, and also Gaspé, which was on the south shore behind the seigneury of Tilly. His holdings in the immediate vicinity of Trois-Rivières were obviously the largest: the Sainte-Marguerite and Carufel seigneuries, the "marquisat Du Sablé," the Vieuxpont fief, and on the south shore the Godefroy, Dutort, and Courval seigneuries.

Personal life

In 1799 he married his cousin Sarah after a stormy courtship punctuated by squabbles with her father, Uriah Judah. Three children, Areli Blake, Orobio, and Louisa Howard, were born of their rather fragile union. In 1807 Sarah went back to her parents' home and obtained a monthly pension of £4 3s. 0d. After getting Hart to agree to drive out his "two women," she returned to him and remained for about five years. But in 1814 she again denounced his conduct and dissolute life, and in the end obtained on March 15, 1816 an annual pension of £300.

Hart had an astonishing number of fairly short affairs. He would finish his days with Mary McCarthy (the widow of one Peter Brown), who, along with some of his legitimate and illegitimate children, was to inherit part of his assets. Hart already had at various times acknowledged and even lent assistance to a number of his other illegitimate children.

Profoundly affected by his matrimonial rebuffs and influenced by his reading of foreign philosophers, Hart began writing discourses in which he attacked the Catholic faith, and then finally proposed a new religion. In 1815 he had a 60-page pamphlet entitled General universal religion printed in New York; he took up his treatise again in 1824 under the title Modern religion. He made use of his business connections to circulate his texts and his ideas, and on occasion made himself available to give lectures to promote his religion which, he said, was relevant to both Jews and deists. He also kept up a correspondence with American deists, among them William Carver.

Paradoxically, at the same time as he denounced Christianity he agreed to help many religious institutions. The Ursulines of Trois-Rivières, as a result of loans he made to them without interest, at one time counted him among their generous benefactors. Hart also financed numerous parishes and made possible the building or restoration of churches, including those of Saint-Michel-d'Yamaska, Saint-Stanislas, William Henry, Saint-Apollinaire, Saint-Charles-des-Grondines, Baie-du-Febvre, and Deschaillons.

Despite his stormy existence and his fleeting impulses for religious reform, Hart progressively re-established closer ties with the religion of his forefathers. Occasionally he made donations to the Shearith Israel congregation of Montreal and New York. At his death he was given a Jewish burial.

References

• Vaugeois, Denis (1985). "Moses Hart". Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. VIII. Toronto. ISBN 0-8020-3422-5. http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=3959. 

Persondata
Name	Hart, Moses
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	November 26, 1768
Place of birth
Date of death	October 15, 1852
Place of death