| Theodore Hart | |
|---|---|
| Born | Theodore Jonathan Hart May 7, 1816 Montreal, Quebec |
| Died | May 28, 1887 (aged 71) Mézières, France |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Spouse | Frances Michael David (1842-1844) Mary Kent Bradbury (1845-death) |
Theodore Jonathan Hart (May 7, 1816 - May 28, 1887) was a Canadian businessman from Montreal, Lower Canada. He was the son of Benjamin Hart and grandson of Aaron Hart.
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Theodore Hart began his business career in his father's firm, Benjamin Hart and Company, a Montreal insurance agency and mercantile business. After his father's death in 1855 Theodore established a similar but separate business which was to include large land holdings and extensive corporate interests. His mercantile business consisted of a general wholesale and retail trade and a part interest in at least one ship that traded between Britain and Canada East.
Hart was one of the incorporators of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1851 and a provisional director of the Montreal and Bytown Railway established in 1853. He also held shares in the Bank of Montreal and the City Bank. Hart was particularly active as an investor in such mining concerns as the Upper Canada Mining Company, the Echo Lake Mining Company, and the Montreal Mining Company.
Hart also participated actively in and contributed generously to the life of his community. A member of the militia, he served during the 1837 rebellion and by 1846 had attained the rank of captain in the 3rd Battalion of Montreal militia. Along with his father he signed the Annexation Manifesto of 1849 and later became a political partisan of Luther Hamilton Holton, a Liberal and the man he felt would serve the best commercial interests of the city. Hart made generous financial donations to McGill College's general endowment, the Montreal Protestant House of Industry and Refuge, and the Montreal General Hospital, which he served as a governor for several terms. In recognition of his philanthropy the hospital made him a life governor in 1878.
Although a member of one of Montreal's most prominent Jewish families and an early, active participant in the Shearith Israel congregation, Hart became estranged from his religious community in the late 1840s. The cause of his estrangement may have been his second marriage, to Mary Kent Bradbury, a Unitarian from Boston. His first marriage on January 4, 1842 to Frances "Fanny" Michaels David, his first cousin, ended with her death in 1844 after she had given birth to two daughters: Sarah Harline and Fanny Augusta. By his second marriage Hart had three sons and a daughter: Charles Theodore, Frederick L'Estrange Levey, Robert Augustus Baldwin, and Edith Marie. Like several of his business contemporaries, including his friend Luther Holton, both Hart and his wife joined the Unitarian Church of the Messiah.
In 1872 Hart gave up business and five years later retired to Europe for health reasons, although he visited Montreal periodically. He died of stomach cancer on May 28, 1887 at the home of his daughter, the wife of a French prefect, in Mézières.