Archive of approximately 60 legal manuscripts concerning <<Aaron Hart>> and his sons.

<<Much original research can be derived from this significant Archive pertaining to early Canadian history, especially concerning its first Jewish settlers.>> Provenance: Judge James Reid (lawyer of the Hart family, 1769-1848). To: Robert Deveaux Woodruff Band (Canadiana collector, 1927-2013). The Hart family were prominent within the political, legal, social and economic life of the Trois-Rivières and Montreal regions from the late 18th century. They were among the very first families of the Jewish faith to settle in the Province of Quebec, shortly after 1759. Aaron Hart (1724-1798 or 1800*) arrived to Canada with General Haldimand in 1760 as the British took control of Montreal. After a brief sojourn in England to marry a Jewish woman, Dorothea Judah, Hart  built a formidable business trading furs and opening stores of general merchandise, raised the first Canadian Jewish family, four boys and four girls. His great wealth accompanied a fine public reputation. In 1775 the Continental Army invaded Quebec in an attempt to enlist the French speaking Canadians on the side of the Revolution. Reportedly, Hart’s stores were looted by American soldiers. Hart issued paper money under his own name to reestablish himself. His reputation was so good “that they were regarded, as I am told on good authority, with the same security as a coin from the royal mint,” according to Julius J. Price, historian of Canadian Jewry (“The Hart Family of Three Rivers,” The American Israelite, 62.50, June 8, 1916). He died one of the wealthiest men in Canada. In 1807, his son Ezekiel Hart (1770-1843) was elected no less than three times to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, a singularly new experience for a Jew, yet he was unable to take his seat in that legislative body for he refused to take his oath “on the truth faith of a Christian. * Biographies state that Hart died December 28, 1800, based upon a notice in the European Magazine and London Review of March 1801, “Deaths Abroad,” (p. 239) but this might be questioned because one of the documents, a lawsuit filed by sons Benjamin and Alexander, dated April 1804, specify a different date two years earlier: “the decease of the said late Aaron Hart which happened on or about the tenth day of December of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety eight.” These and other historical questions regarding the Hart family would be well served by a close scholarly examination of this archive. Further details concerning Hart family members is available upon request.