Lake County IN Archives Biographies.....Hart, Aaron Northon 1816 - 1883 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 25, 2006, 11:55 pm Author: T. H. Ball (1904) AARON NORTON HART. Aaron Norton Hart is a figure of the past, whose career came to a close over two decades ago, but whose acts survive as an enduring monument of human energy. Count that man well starred, indeed, who accomplishes aught in this hurrying world that is destined to continuance and endurance, for most men's deeds seldom outlive their mortal years. But A. N. Hart (always called A. N. Hart) was a character of such force and originality that it was inevitable he should leave an impress on some phase of human endeavor, and this will be found in what he did for the advancement of agriculture, and reclamation of the swamps of Lake county to lasting cultivation and crop-production. He was one of the pioneers and most successful promoters of this work, and as his task at the start was a stupendous one, so the happy solution of its difficulties brought him proportionate rewards, and at his death he was one of the wealthy men of Lake county. And rich not alone in this world's goods, but in the esteem of his fellow citizens and in his own worth as a. spirit of action, of energizing power, of virile manhood and nobility of character. Mr. Hart was well on toward seventy years of age when he was suddenly deprived of life, but he was an active force in affairs and at the moment of his death was employed in the work which will stand as his most important enterprise. He met his death on January 12, 1883, under the following circumstances as related by the local press: "Friday morning about 11:30 o'clock Mr. Hart was superintending the construction of a ditch cutting off a large bend in Plum creek, which flows through his farm at Dyer. The ditch had already been cut through, and a current was flowing. The bottom of the ditch was about two feet wide, and the banks some ten or twelve feet high. A man was working just ahead of him, cutting off clods and frozen earth, while Mr. Hart was standing at the bottom of the ditch, pulling the loosened clods down into the ditch that they might float off. Suddenly, without warning, the left-hand bank caved, the sharp, frozen edge of the falling bank striking him in the region of the heart. Death was instantaneous. He was thrown against the opposite bank and buried to the waist. The man nearest him states that Mr. Hart did not utter a word, and simply threw up one hand; but whether it was an involuntary motion or a gesture, he cannot tell. It required the exertions of ten men to extricate the body, which was at once taken to the residence of the family near by. It is supposed that the bank had become loosened by the blasting, which had been previously done to open the ditch, and that it was ready to fall at the slightest touch." Funeral services were held at his late residence at Dyer and also at Crown Point, where the remains were interred. This once so well-known figure in real estate and commercial circles was born at Akron, Ohio, April 16, 1816, being a son of William J. and Flora (Norton) Hart, of New England. His grandfather was a sea captain of Nova Scotia, and William J. Hart's early home before coming west was in Connecticut. Mr. Hart was well educated in the schools of Ohio, and throughout life was noted for his strong intelligence and keen, alert mind. In the fall of 1850 he went to Philadelphia, where he soon became engaged in the book publishing business, under the firm name of Rice & Hart, Book Publishers. This firm published such works as "National Portrait Gallery," "American Sylva," and "North American Indians," and shortly after the issue of the first named Mr. Hart came west to the territory about Chicago and engaged in selling the work. On July 4, 1861, he located permanently at Dyer in this county, where he had previously made extensive investments in land. Afterwards he engaged in the real estate business in Chicago, where the firm of Hart & Biggs continued for some years before the fire. Mr. Hart was one of the large land-owners in Lake county, and it is in connection with his real estate interests that the forceful elements of his life are best manifested. He owned eight thousand acres in one body in St. John township, and at the time of his death possessed altogether seventeen thousand acres in the county. The Hartsdale farm of eight thousand acres was one of the first of the fertile and inestimably valuable tracts to be rescued from the dominion of swamp and fen, which had been its state for centuries. It was about 1857, when he was traveling through this state and Illinois in the interests of his publications, that Mr. Hart saw the immense Cady's marsh, then covered by water, and realized at once that it could be drained. He bought several thousand acres at various prices ranging from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a quarter per acre. He executed an ingenious and thorough system of drainage by which the water was drawn off into the Calumet river, and Mr. Hart found that he had thousands of acres of rich alluvial soil, whose depth of fertility could never be impoverished by cultivation, and where crops have grown through all the successive years in abundance and ever increasing value. A few months before his death Mr. Hart was offered two hundred thousand dollars for his farm, but refused, since it was worth twice that princely sum. Mr. Hart was energetic and enterprising in many affairs looking to permanent improvement and development of his county, and no feasible plan for public progress could be presented to him without arousing his interest and co-operation. His pioneer efforts in making the fertile fanning tracts from the original swamps did more for the permanent growth and prosperity of the town of Dyer than any other one cause, and that town and community lost a great force for good in the death of Mr. Hart. He was very much interested in a ship canal from the southern end of Lake Michigan to Toledo, effecting the saving of the long passage to the north through the straits of Mackinac. He was not a dreamer, but a practical man of affairs, and the solution of hard problems and the undertaking of great enterprises were the natural element for his mind and energies to work in. Mr. Hart was married at Philadelphia in 1844 to Miss Martha Reed Dyre, who was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1824, and died at Crown Point, January 4, 1897, a companionable and much loved old lady of seventy-three years. She was the niece of Father Taylor, the famous Boston divine. A. N. Hart and wife had the following children: James W., deceased: Milton R.; Malcolm T., deceased; and Mrs. Flora Norton Biggs. Mr. Hart was an uncompromising Republican after that party came into existence, and before that his political alignment had been with the Whig element. Mrs. Flora Norton Biggs, the only daughter of Mr. Hart, was born in Akron, Ohio, and was educated in Mrs. Cary's private school in Philadelphia. She was united in marriage in 1865 to Mr. James H. Biggs, of Cincinnati, now deceased, and who for some time was engaged in the real estate business. Additional Comments: Extracted from: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Genealogy and Biography OF LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA, WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 1834—1904 A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. REV. T. H. BALL OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO NEW YORK THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 1904 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/lake/bios/hart610gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/ File size: 8.0 Kb