Henry Hart was a businessman who came to Albany during the American Revolution.

In 1779, his home near the Market House was included on the tax rolls with his personal property assessed at a rate comparable to other merchants. In 1781, he was identified as a non-native-born merchant who paid for the right to conduct business in the city.

In October 1782, he married Elizabeth Visscher in the nearby Albany Dutch church. Two of their children had been baptiszed there by 1784.

Henry Hart advertized in the New-York Gazetteer in December 1782 - offering imported items in exchange for lumber and grains near the Market House in Albany. He also supplied rum for the Albany city council. In 1785, his back appartment was rented to Alexander Laverty, a "tayler from London."

Although he was accorded a land bounty right in conjunction with the Albany militia, except for appearing as a witness in May 1781, his name is absent from the minutes of local Revolutionary era organizations.

His name did not appear on the Albany census of 1790. The last recorded reference to him came in 1799 when a second ward lot was assessed as belonging to the "heir" of Henry Hart!

Sources: The life of Henry Hart is CAP biography number 8358. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. We seek defining information on his origins and fate! Perhaps he was the Henry Hart who applied for a Revolutionary war pension and still was living in Troy in 1840. Or was he the kinsman of Albany native and writer Bret Harte (1839-1902) whose father was named Henry Hart?