Ezekiel Hart (1770 - 1843)

Born 15 May 1770 in Trois-Rivières, Québec

Ancestors

Died 16 Sep 1843 at age 73 in Trois-Rivières, Québec

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Biography

Ezekiel Hart was the second son of Aaron (Moshe Uri B. Yehezkel) Hart and Dorothy (Dorothea) Catherine Judah. He was a businessman, seigneur, militia officer, justice of the peace and politician in Trois-Rivières, Québec.^[1]

Ezekiel obtained part of his education in the United States. In 1792 his father brought him into his store and involved him in his fur-trade activities. The following year he was in New York and lived for a while at the home of Ephraim Hart and his wife Frances Noah. There he met Mrs. Hart's niece, Frances Lazarus, and on January 29, 1794 they were married. He also looked after family affairs and settled the estate of his uncle Henry Hart, who had been a merchant in Albany, New York. He, along with his brother Benjamin, served as a colonel in the militia during the American War of Independence.

On December 2, 1796, Hart and his brothers, Moses and Benjamin, went into partnership to establish a brewery in Trois-Rivières, the M. and E. Hart Company. By the terms of the agreement the three agreed to hold equal shares in the firm. They had the financial backing of their father. Ezekiel Hart later withdrew from the M. and E. Hart Company and sold everything to Moses, apparently soon after their father's death in 1800. Subsequently Ezekiel followed in the footsteps of his father, who was in every respect his model. He went into the import and export trade, kept a general store, never let a good business deal pass, and acquired property. Besides inheriting the seigneury of Bécancour, he bought a great deal of land mainly at Trois-Rivières and Cap-de-la-Madeleine..

Ezekiel Hart died on September 16, 1843 at Trois-Rivières, at the age of 73. He was accorded an impressive funeral. All the stores in Trois-Rivières closed, and the 81st Foot paid him final honours. He was buried in the second Jewish cemetery in Trois-Rivières, which was on a lot that he himself had given for it. He had dictated his last will on June 20, 1839. At the time of his death, he had lived in an enormous well-furnished house with 16 rooms. He was survived by his ten children: Samuel Becancour, Harriet, Aaron Ezekiel, Esther Elizabeth, Miriam, Carolina Athalia, Henry, Julia, Abraham Kitzinger, and Adolphus Mordecai. Ezekiel Hart was admitted into the militia in June 1803.

The Hart family papers can be found at the American Jewish Historical Society Archives in Waltham, Massachusetts, and at the McCord Museum in Montreal, Québec. The Château Ramezay owns an oil portrait of him. The Member from Trois-Rivières, a one-act play about the life of Ezekiel Hart, was written in 1959 by Maxwell Charles Cohen. In 2002, a commemorative plaque was erected to Ezekiel Hart by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. A plaque was commemorated to him at the Patrimoine de Trois-Rivières. In his honor, a street in Trois-Rivières bears his name (Rue Hart).

The Hart Affair On April 11, 1807, Ezekiel Hart was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada over three other candidates, obtaining 59 out of the 116 votes cast. (This was not the first time a Jew had run for election: Moses Hart, Ezekiel's older brother, had run unsuccessfully for a seat in William-Henry in 1796). The election having taken place on Shabbat, Hart refused to take his oath of allegiance at that time. He would await the opening of the session of the legislature in Quebec the following January. Ezekiel caused great controversy when, being Jewish he swore his oath on a Hebrew Bible, instead of on the Christian Bible, in preparation for taking up his seat on January 29, 1808. The next day an objection was raised by the attorney general, Jonathan Sewell, seconded by Justice Pierre-Amable de Bonne, that the oath was not taken in the manner required for sitting in the assembly - an oath of abjuration, which would have required Hart to swear "on the true faith on a Christian". Sewell moved that the assembly pass a resolution to this effect, and that Ezekiel be provided with a copy of the resolution, "to the end that he may thereupon pursue such further course in the premises as the law of Parliament may be found to require". Shortly after, Thomas Coffin, the runner-up in the election in Trois-Rivières,petitioned the assembly, calling for the removal of Hart because, as a Jew, he was "not capable of being elected to serve in the House of Assembly, or of taking the oaths requires, or sitting or voting in the Assembly," and asking that the election be considered null and void and that Coffin be given the seat for Trois-Rivières in his place.

After the election, on April 18, Le Canadien, the mouthpiece of the Canadian party, published a scurrilous poem decrying the choice of a Jew for a seat as even more foolish than Caligula's appointment of his horse as a Roman consul and priest. In the same issue, a more ideologically explicit attack was launched. Many antisemitic letters to the editor were published, one of which argued that the electors of Trois-Rivières should bereprimanded for electing a Jew to office. Ezekiel was a personal friend of many Québec authorities, notably Sir James Henry Craig, Governor-General and Lieutenant Governor of Lower Canada (he was godfather to one of his children, Ira James). Craig tried to protect Hart, but the legislature dismissed him. Another petition came from Hart himself, saying that, while he believed that he was justified in law in taking a seat by means of the oath used by Jews in the courts, he was willing to swear the oaths used for those elected to the assembly. After some deliberation, however, on February 20, 1808, the assembly resolved by a vote of 35 to 5 that "Ezekiel Hart, Esquire, professing the Jewish, religion cannot take a seat, nor sit, nor vote, in this House."

In 1808, new elections were held, and once again Trois-Rivières returned Hart as one of its two representatives. This time, to avoid controversy, Hart took the oath in the same fashion as a Christian. In his presentation to the assembly, Pierre-Stanislas Bédard, the leader of Le Canadien, argued against granting a seat in the assembly. He claimed that "no Christian nation had granted Jews the rights of citizens, not for unjust reasons, but because they themselves do not wish to be part of any country. They may make a country their residence to pursue theirbusiness dealings, but never their home. This state of affairs is a result of the Jewish tradition, which requires Jews to wait for the messiah, their prince; while waiting, they cannot pledge allegiance to any other prince."When the assembly finally reconvened in 1809, Ezekiel sat as a member for Trois-Rivières for a few days. After ascertaining that Hart had been expelled the previous year, the assembly voted to expel him again.The events of 1807-1809 are known as the Hart Affair.

Sources

1. ↑ Denis Vaugeois, “HART, EZEKIEL,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 19, 2016, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hart_ezekiel_7E.html.

• WikiTree profile Hart-2568 created through the import of Les Gilham Family Tree.ged on Dec 27, 2012 by Les Gilham. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Les and others.