Moses Hart
Encyclopedia
Moses Hart was a Canadian
businessman and seigneur
, eldest son of Aaron Hart
.
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.
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.
. 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.
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.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
businessman and seigneur
Seigneurial system of New France
The seigneurial system of New France was the semi-feudal system of land distribution used in the North American colonies of New France.-Introduction to New France:...
, eldest son of Aaron Hart
Aaron Hart (businessman)
Aaron Philip Hart was a businessman in Lower Canada and one of the first Jews to settle in the colony. He is considered the father of Canadian Jewry...
.
Early life
Moses Hart was born in Trois-RivièresTrois-Rivières
Trois-Rivières means three rivers in French and may refer to:in Canada*Trois-Rivières, the largest city in the Mauricie region of Quebec, Canada*Circuit Trois-Rivières, a racetrack in Trois-Rivières, Quebec...
to Aaron Hart
Aaron Hart (businessman)
Aaron Philip Hart was a businessman in Lower Canada and one of the first Jews to settle in the colony. He is considered the father of Canadian Jewry...
and Dorothea Judah.
Hart took his first initiatives at Nicolet
Nicolet, Quebec
Nicolet, Quebec is the county seat of Nicolet-Yamaska Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada. The population as of the Canada 2006 Census was 7,827...
, which he was pleased to call Hartville. However, it was at William Henry
Sorel-Tracy, Quebec
Sorel-Tracy is a city in southwestern Quebec, Canada and the geographical end point of the Lake Champlain Valley at the confluence of the Richelieu River and the St. Lawrence River, on the western edge of Lac Saint-Pierre downstream and east of nearby Montreal. The population as of the Canada 2006...
that his career began in earnest. He ran a general store
General store
A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...
in this strategic post located at the start of the road to New York. His trade was with England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
as well as with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. 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 BellMathew Bell
Mathew Bell was a seigneur, businessman and political figure in Lower Canada. His first name is also sometimes recorded as Matthew....
and Joseph Badeaux
Joseph Badeaux
Joseph Badeaux was the son of Jean-Baptiste Badeaux and, in 1792, he began articling to become a notary. His clerkship was with his brother Antoine-Isidore, who, like their father, was of the notarial profession. He was commissioned to practise in 1798...
. He ran again in Saint-Maurice
Saint-Maurice (Lower Canada)
Under the Constitutional Act of 1791, the district of Saint-Maurice was established. Its boundaries, which roughly covered the current Mauricie area except for the city of Trois-Rivières, were reduced when the district of Champlain was created in 1829...
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
Edward Greive
Edward Greive was a businessman and political figure in Canada East.He was a merchant at Trois-Rivières and also acted as an agent there for Mathew Bell. In 1844, he married Catherine, Bell's daughter...
, and then another in Nicolet against Antoine-Prosper Méthot
Antoine-Prosper Méthot
Antoine-Prosper Méthot was a Quebec notary and political figure.He was born Antoine-Prosper Méthotte at Pointe-aux-Trembles, Lower Canada in 1804. Méthot studied at the Petit Séminaire de Québec, apprenticed as a notary, received his commission in 1829 and set up practice at...
; 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
Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine
Sir Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine , 1st Baronet, KCMG was the first Canadian to become Prime Minister of the United Province of Canada and the first head of a responsible government in Canada. He was born in Boucherville, Lower Canada in 1807...
and to governors such as Sir Charles Theophilus Metcalfe
Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe
Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe, Bt, KCB, PC , known as Sir Charles Metcalfe, Bt between 1822 and 1845, was a British colonial administrator...
. 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
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
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 GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
. 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
Bank of Montreal
The Bank of Montreal , , or BMO Financial Group, is the fourth largest bank in Canada by deposits. The Bank of Montreal was founded on June 23, 1817 by John Richardson and eight merchants in a rented house in Montreal, Quebec. On May 19, 1817 the Articles of Association were adopted, making it...
the Quebec Bank, the Bank of Canada
Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada is Canada's central bank and "lender of last resort". The Bank was created by an Act of Parliament on July 3, 1934 as a privately owned corporation. In 1938, the Bank became a Crown corporation belonging to the Government of Canada...
, and the City Bank
City Bank
The City Bank was an early bank in Ontario in the 19th century and merged with Royal Canadian Bank to form Consolidated Bank of Canada in 1876....
. Steam navigation fascinated Hart as much as banking. He is reputed to have quickly decided to compete with the PS Accommodation
PS Accommodation
The Canadian paddlewheeler Accommodation was the first successful steamboat built entirely in North America.Financed by brewer John Molson, she was constructed by John Jackson and John Bruce in Montréal in 1809, using engines built in Forges Saint-Maurice, Trois-Rivières...
, which John Molson
John Molson
John Molson was an English-speaking Quebecer who was a major brewer and entrepreneur in Canada, starting the Molson Brewing Company.-Birth and early life:...
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
Port of Quebec
The Port of Quebec is an inland port located in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. It is the oldest port in Canada, and the second largest in Quebec after the Port of Montreal.-History:...
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
Saint Lawrence River
The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...
. 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
Deism
Deism in religious philosophy is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the...
. 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
Ursulines
The Ursulines are a Roman Catholic religious order for women founded at Brescia, Italy, by Saint Angela de Merici in November 1535, primarily for the education of girls and the care of the sick and needy. Their patron saint is Saint Ursula.-History:St Angela de Merici spent 17 years leading a...
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 Shearith Israel
Congregation Shearith Israel, often called The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, is the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. It was established in 1654....
congregation of Montreal and New York. At his death he was given a Jewish burial.