1 [Isaac]

Captain Samuel Hart

Colonial cargo ship

Captain Samuel Hart, born in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, on February 9, 1656, was the son of Isaac and Elizabeth Hutchins Hart.  He married Sarah Endicott, a reputed niece of Governor John Endicott.  Sarah was born in Redding, Massachusetts, in 1673.

Mr. Hart resided in what is now Lynnfield, Massachusetts and became a sea captain at the age of 16.  Sometime after 1716, at the age of 60, he left the sea and remained at home on his farm in Lynnfield.  On one of his voyages, he received from the Grand Turk a silver cup and other trinkets.

The following traditional story is told by his descendants, as he handed down (from Ebenezer Parsons of Lynnfield Center): "He said as he was lying awake one night in his cabin a woman entered, having in one hand a lighted candle and in the other an hour-glass.  He looked at the hour-glass and saw that the sands were almost run, and thought it meant he should die with the running of the last sands.  But as the last sands were run, the woman turned the hour-glass and vanished.  he then concluded his life was half spent and noted to himself at the time, but would never tell his family when this occurred.  At the age of 60 years, he ceased going to sea; on a certain night before retiring his family noticed that he remained longer than was usual at his devotions, and in the morning he was found dead in bed."

Captain Samuel Hart died on December 30, 1730.  No record of his wife's death has been found.

Courtesy of James M. Hart book on Hart ancestors published in 1903.