THOMAS B. HART

Butte County

Biographies

THOMAS B. HART

THOMAS B. HART.--A long active business man of wide experience and considerable success, who has lost none of his popularity now that he is retired and spends his days in the circles of his friends, telling of the good old times and how men used to operate when there were real problems, and life was really worth the living because the game was worth the playing, is Thomas B. Hart, who came to California in 1875. He was born at Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio, on February 12, 1851, the son of William Hart, a native of Pennsylvania who migrated to Ohio, was a farmer there, and from Ohio went into the Civil War, in support of the Union, as a member of an Ohio regiment. Returning to Pennsylvania, he spent his last days there, and there he died. Thomas's mother, whose maiden name was Lucy Baker, died when he was two years old. Seven children had been born into the family, two had gone into the Civil War as Ohio volunteers, and only two are living. Of the soldiers referred to, Leander was wounded in battle, lost a leg, was captured by the enemy, and died in Libby Prison; Emmet, on the other hand, went through the war practically unscathed.

Brought up with an uncle in Ohio, and then with strangers, Thomas shifted for himself from his eighth year, lived on farms, and attended the public schools. In 1873, he took up the then popular work of photography and followed that for a living until he came to California. Having a brother, Emmet, a dairyman, at Eureka, in Humboldt County, he went to the mouth of the Bear River and worked two years dairying, and in 1877 came to Chico.

Here he bought out a bakery and conducted it, with a confectionery store, for four years, when he sold it and started in the confectionery business in the Odd Fellows' Building on Third Street. He went into that location in 1884 as the first tenant in the old place; and he built up a first class trade as a manufacturing confectioner. He sold at wholesale as well as retail, made ice cream and shipped it out of town; and in this he continued to busy himself until 1913. He had admitted his son-in-law, H. E. Wagner, in 1906, as a partner, the firm being Hart and Wagner, until they sold out in 1913.

Partly as the result of prosperous years and the natural wisdom of a man who has the foresight to invest what he has worked hard to amass, Mr. Hart became interested in a copper mine in Arizona, operated by the Mascot Copper Company, and in the orchards of the Butte County Orchards Company, where they have three hundred twenty acres of prunes. From these investments he derives satisfactory returns, all of which contribute to his comfort at the old residence at Third and Normal Streets.

It was at Marysville, March 22, 1881, that Mr. Hart was married to Miss Bessie Serviss, a native of Ontario, Canada, and now the mother of a daughter, Ruby, Mrs. H. E. Wagner, of San Francisco, who has two sons, John Hart and Harold Serviss. Mrs. Wagner studied music in Washington, D.C., returned with laurels from the capital of the nation, and taught music here with great success, so that there are many who will long recall her with pleasure for what she did to advance and maintain vocal standards.

After thirty-seven years of wedded bliss, on July 8, 1918, Mrs. Hart passed away to that undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns. Mr. Hart was bereft of a loving companion and devoted wife; the daughter, of an affectionate mother.

Mr. Hart is a Republican in politics affecting mostly national affairs; he has long been a very welcome member of the Chico Lodge, No. 113, I. O. O. F., in which he is a Past Grand, and of the Encampment, and was a member of the Canton, where he is now a past officer, having been a delegate to the Grand Lodge five times. He was a member of the Fire Department, Chico Engine Company, No. 1, and is now a member of the Active Exempts.

Transcribed by Sande Beach.

Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 478-479, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.

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