Ray S. Hart

As printed in 1914

RAY S. HART.

Ray S. Hart is a busy and energetic farmer who for the past sixteen years has resided on and cultivated a tract of eighty acres on section 7, Denmark township. He owns this property and it gives evidence in its neat and thrifty appearance of his watchful care and. wise supervision. He was born in Pleasant Ridge township, Lee county, August 30, 1841, and is a son of John H. and Phoebe (Thurston) Hart, who came to this county in 1838 and 1840 respectively. The father was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1799 and in the paternal line came of Irish ancestry and in the material line was of Scotch lineage. His father was a cabinetmaker and died in Rhode Island at the remarkable old age of ninety-four years. John H. Hart was one of a family of five sons and two daughters. One of his brothers, Edward Hart, was for two years a resident of Lee county, Iowa.

John H. Hart was reared and married in Rhode Island. He learned and followed the cabinetmaker's trade and was also an auctioneer. After his removal to the west he gave his attention largely to auctioneering and to farming, which he carried on in Lee county in 1871, when he removed to Bates county, Missouri. There his death occurred within the year. He was a Baptist in his religious faith, while his fraternal relations were with the Masons and the Odd Fellows, both of which organizations found in him a loyal and devoted representative. He married Phoebe Thurston, also a native of Rhode Island, and her death occurred in Lee county in 1852, her remains being interred in the West Point cemetery. One of her brothers, William Thurston, came to Fort Madison, Iowa, about 1838, thus casting in his lot with the earliest pioneers. He remained there to the time of his death. Unto John H. and Phoebe Hart were born seven children, of whom Ray S. was third in order of birth, and only one other is now living, Thomas H. Hart, a resident of Fort Madison. Having lost his first wife, the father married Emily Green and they had three children, two of whom survive, one being a resident of Illinois and the other of Osceola, Iowa.

Ray S. Hart was reared upon the old home farm in Pleasant Ridge township with the usual experiences of the farm lad, who as his age and strength increase aids more and more largely in the work of the fields and thus circumscribes the time which he can devote to the acquirement of an education. Practical training well qualified him for his later duties when he began farming on his own account. With the outbreak of the Civil war, however, he put aside all personal interests, enlisting in 1861, when twenty years of age, as a member of Company F, First Iowa Cavalry. His regiment was assigned to the Seventh Corps of the Western Army and Mr. Hart was on active duty for three years and three months, the last year being largely spent on detached duty in connection with the medical department. He was never wounded, although he suffered from malarial fever and his illness so reduced his weight that he tipped the scales at only ninety pounds when he returned home.

Not content with the educational opportunities that he had thus far received, Ray S. Hart afterward attended school in Denmark for a year and a half. He then went to Colorado, spending about a year in that state in the vicinity of Denver, where he engaged in freighting. Upon his return to Iowa he began farming in Denmark township and has since successfully followed that pursuit, being now the owner of a good tract of land of eighty acres on section 7, which he has brought to a high state of cultivation. His fields are carefully tilled along progressive and scientific lines, and success follows his efforts in the production of good crops.

Mr. Hart was married in this county, in 1878, to Miss Celia Stiles, who was born near Des Moines, in Warren county, Iowa, on the 20th of September, 1851;, a daughter of Horace and Rachel (Van Hyning) Stiles. The father, who was a native of New Hampshire, came to Lee county in 1838, a number of years before the admission of the state into the Union — and settled upon a farm in what was then a frontier region. After his marriage he removed to Warren county, Iowa, but in 1867 returned to Denmark, where the mother died in 1873, at the age of forty-four years. She was a Baptist in religious faith and lived an earnest Christian life. Mr. Stiles afterward removed to Nebraska, where he passed away in 1897, at the venerable age of eighty-one years. In their family were five children, of whom four are yet living: Mrs. Hart; Mrs. Mary

McClees, whose home is in York, Nebraska; Mrs. Amelia Brewer, whose husband is a police officer of York, Nebraska; and Mrs. Martha Chase, of Portland, Oregon.

Unto Mr. and Mrs. Hart have been born four children: Addie, the wife of Walter Orton, a resident of Denmark township, by whom she has two children, Alvin and Hart; John, at home; Edith, who is the widow of Joseph Blindt and resides in Burlington, Iowa; and Carl, who married Mabel Bradfield and is employed in a button factory in Burlington, Iowa. The parents are members of the Church of God of Des Moines county.

Politically Mr. Hart is a republican, never faltering in his allegiance to the party which was the defense of the Union during the dark days of the Civil war and which has always been regarded as the party of reform and progress. He holds membership with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, with the Modern Woodmen of America and with the Grand Army post of Fort Madison and through the latter connection maintains close and pleasant relations with his old army comrades. He made an excellent military record when on the battlefields of the south and has always been equally loyal to the best interests of city, state and nation in days of peace.

As printed in Story of Lee County, Iowa; (1914). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.