Hartford (Thomas Hart plantation and mills)

In the chronology

Storylines about this site, each with a page of its own:

• The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 137 events
• The Bentons at Hartford: Jesse Benton and the young Thomas Hart Benton, 1780–1799

1. 1757 Thomas Hart receives his first Orange County land grant Thomas Hart, newly come from Hanover County, Virginia, settled at Hillsborough and was granted 273 acres in 1757, then 1,058 acres in 1759 and 951 in 1779, on the Eno River, Seven Mile Creek, Horseley Creek and Country Line Creek. On his land at Seven Mile Creek and the Eno, about two miles northwest of town, he built his home, Hartford; up the river stood his grist mill, and the community there was known as Hart's Mill. Internet Archive: Durward T. Stokes, "Thomas Hart in North Carolina", North Carolina Historical Review 41 (1964), p. 325
2. November 1767 Thomas Hart buys Joseph Maddock's mill on the Eno Joseph Maddock, a Quaker who had run the grist mill on the Eno west of Hillsborough since 1755, sold it to Thomas Hart, a friend of Governor William Tryon, who built it up with a sawmill, oil mill, fulling mill, distillery, tannery and other works. This is the mill, known as Hart's Mill, that a British guard held in February 1781. People: Thomas Hart NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Hart's Mill (G-122)
3. Fall 1780 Thomas Hart leaves Hartford and moves his family to Maryland With Loyalists raiding his property and Cornwallis expected after Camden, Thomas Hart took General Gates's advice and in the fall of 1780 moved his family from Hartford to Hagerstown, Maryland, according to his partner Nathaniel Rochester, who went with him. Before leaving Hart sold part of his land, and Hartford went to Jesse Benton, husband of his niece, for a payment and a note. There is no record that Hart came back. People: Thomas Hart, Nathaniel Rochester, Horatio Gates, Jesse Benton Internet Archive: Durward T. Stokes, "Thomas Hart in North Carolina", North Carolina Historical Review 41 (1964), p. 333
4. February 18, 1781 Patriots and Loyalists clash at Hart’s Mill At daybreak about 45 North Carolina cavalry under Captain Joseph Graham and mounted riflemen under Captain Richard Simmons, sent out by General Andrew Pickens, surprised the British guard of about 26 regulars and two Loyalists that was keeping Thomas Hart's mill on the Eno grinding for Cornwallis's army. Graham's accounts report the whole guard killed, wounded or captured with no Patriot dead, and the party reached Pickens's camp with its prisoners ahead of pursuing British cavalry. People: Andrew Pickens, Joseph Graham (1759-1836) Southern Campaigns Revolutionary War Pension Statements: Pension application of Joseph Graham S6937
5. Fall 1782 to spring 1783 Drought leaves the Hartford mills without water and crops short around Hillsborough Jesse Benton wrote Thomas Hart in December 1782 that it was a most fatal hard year, without water to run the mills or bring up the crops, and in March 1783 that crops were poor or lost and many families had to go fifty or sixty miles for bread while their debts mounted. He was letting many small debtors of Hart's wait because of the hard times. People: Thomas Hart Internet Archive: William N. Chambers, "As the Twig Is Bent: The Family and the North Carolina Years of Thomas Hart Benton, 1752-1801", North Carolina Historical Review 26 (1949), p. 397
6. March 14, 1782 Jesse Benton's son Thomas Hart Benton is born near Hillsborough Thomas Hart Benton, later a U.S. senator from Missouri, was born on March 14, 1782, the son of Jesse and Ann Gooch Benton. His biographer William N. Chambers placed the birth in a house on the Benton land on the right bank of the Eno about three miles west of Hillsborough, and thought the family did not live at Hart's Mill until late 1782; the state highway marker gives Hart's Mill, and a local tradition names Moorefields. NC DNCR: Thomas H. Benton (G-26) · Also: Internet Archive: William N. Chambers
7. Late 1790 Jesse Benton dies at Hartford Jesse Benton died of consumption before the end of 1790, leaving a large estate heavily in debt. His will, dated October 21, 1790, left his widow Nancy the Meadow Place plantation on McGowen's Creek, divided the enslaved people and western lands among the children, and let his executors, Nancy, Alfred Moore, William Watters and Absalom Tatom, sell Hartford and its mills to pay his debts. It was witnessed by his brothers Samuel and Augustine and proved at Hillsborough in the August 1791 term. He was buried at Hartford. People: Alfred Moore, Absalom Tatom Internet Archive: William N. Chambers, "As the Twig Is Bent: The Family and the North Carolina Years of Thomas Hart Benton, 1752-1801", North Carolina Historical Review 26 (1949), p. 403
8. By 1801 Nancy Benton takes her family from Hartford to Tennessee After two more years in North Carolina, Nancy Benton decided she could do better on the lands her husband had claimed in the Cumberland valley, and by 1801 she had settled her family on the Tennessee frontier. Internet Archive: William N. Chambers, "As the Twig Is Bent: The Family and the North Carolina Years of Thomas Hart Benton, 1752-1801", North Carolina Historical Review 26 (1949), p. 414

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