Jonathan Hart

     Jonathan Hart was the son of John Hart and Florence Norman.³ He married Lydia Neale, daughter of John Neale and Mary Lawes, 9 mo. 1671 (November 1671) in Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts.^4,5 He died before 1721.¹
     
     In 1673, after the death of his mother, he commenced suit against John Peach, Jr., to recover his father's house and six acres of land in Marblehead one acre being about the house and the remaining five acres near Devereux's Point. He sued "in behalf of himself and his sisters Elizabeth, Sarah, Deborah and Florence, the only children and heirs of John Hart and Florence, his wife," his brothers-in-law Edward Flint, Jeremiah Neale, Joseph Morgan and John Trask having given him a power-of-attorney dated 1 March 1672/3. John Cooke and William Buckley testified that they went with Jonathan Hart of Salem to the house in question on 20 February 1672/3, and heard Jonathan Hart say "Goodman peach you know this house & Land was my Fathers he said I know it was, y^e s^d Jonathan Hart said Goodman peach I command you to go out of doors & give me posestion. He answered he would not--win it and wear it."⁴ Peach relied on the deed of Capt. George Corwin, who deeded the property to him, on authority given by the County Court, on 8 March 1661/2, and presented in evidence the papers relating to the settlement of John Hart's estate and the deed, but the jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff. Peach demanded a review of the case, the writ being dated five days after the original writ, and the second trial was held in Salem 24 June 1673, the verdict being returned in favor of Peach. Included in the new evidence was a deposition by William Beale stating that Jonathan Hart had owned, in his hearing, that his mother Florence Norman had accepted his father's moveable estate in lieu of her dower right in his land, and William Waters testified that he heard Florence Norman say that she would be glad of such a settlement and that she carried the moveables away with her. Jonathan Hart appealed the case to the next Court of Assistants in Boston, John Putnam going on his bond. The case was presented the following October, and judgment was reversed in favor of Hart and his sisters. Peach did not, however, rest at this point, but presented a further appeal to the General Court, which sustained him, handing down a judgment that he was entitled to the property. In 1681 the Harts again attempted to have the case reviewed in the County Court, but it was withdrawn before trial,^6,7 and Hart satisfied judgment in January 1681/2.

     In a similar case in 1679, Jonathan Hart, by his attorneys, Jeremiah Neale and Edward Flint, sued Richard Rowland for retaining four or five acres of the "plaine farm" which his father John Hart died possessed of and which the proprietors of Marblehead had purchased of Major Hawthorne. The Commissioners Court gave judgment for Rowland, but Hart appealed to the County Court and obtained a verdict. Testimony was presented that Richard Rowland had admitted that he had a third part of John Hart's land in his possession, and Martha Beale testified that Jonathan Hart would have sued in his mother's life time, but that she would not let him.⁸

     Jonathan Hart had sold other land in Marblehead to Thomas Pitman, Jr., in 1678, and he deeded fourteen acres of the "plaine farm," the title being legally cleared by the Court's judgment, to Robert Bartlett in 1679, his brothers-in-law Neale and Flint also signing the deed, which was witnessed by his uncle Richard Norman.⁹ In 1681 he made an agreement with his Neale brothers-in-law in regard to the land inherited from his father-in-law John Neale in the North Field.¹⁰ Lydia Neale Hart, who signed the Pitman deed in 1678, was dead in 1681.¹¹

     Jonathan Hart was still living in 1707, when his son is called Jonathan Hart, Jr., in a deed from his uncle Lieut. Neale.¹² The probate records contain no settlement of his estate, but he was dead in 1721 when the Records of the Salem Proprietors mention his estate.¹³