History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield ...

144 Biographical Sketches. Hart.
frontier. His wife was distinguished for refinement, elegant
manners, and true dignity and strength of chara6ler ;
and her
influence in molding the social condition of the little wilderness
community was excellent and enduring. She died in 1847, at
the age of 82, and her remains were entombed at Mount Auburn,
in the lot of her son Stephen J.
Bowles. Samuel Bowles, so
long conspicuous and influential as editor of the Springfield
Republican was a descendant.
Then there was Edmund Hart, the skillful naval architeft, a
native of Lynn, who lived in the Lois Hart house, on Boston
street a few rods west of Federal. The famous frigate Constitution
was built at his ship-yard, in North End, Boston ;
and as a
good view of the yard could be had from Noddle's Island, now
East Boston, hundreds went over from the town to see the
launch. But the land which the ship-yard occupied does not
seem to have been well chosen, as it was found that the ways
were liable to sink. Two unsuccessful attempts were made
before the frigate took kindly to her destiny. Sometime before
the Revolution,
Admiral Montague favored the project of having
a British navy yard at the island, remarking that " the devil had
got into the government when they fixed the navy yard at Halifax,"
for " God Almighty made Noddle's Island on purpose for a
dock yard." But if it was preferable to Charlestown why did not
our own government establish the navy yard there } Had a
British dock yard been established there, in provincial times,
instead of at Halifax, how different would probably have been
the series of events that followed, and how different the condition
of the whole country at this day.
The Hart family is extensively distributed over the country ;
and it seems quite certain that they did not all come from one
family of immigrants. There was a John Hart, a Quaker preacher,
who came with William Penn, and settled in Pennsylvania,
having purchased a thousand acres of land before coming over.
He left male descendants, one or two of whom, having abjured
the faith of their fathers, became conspicuous as military leaders
in Indian confli61;s and in the Revolution. The similarity of
came from the
christian names, however, rather indicates that all
same stock, not many generations back. " Honest John Hart,"
a well-to-do New Jersey farmer, whose name appears on that