My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE O. HART was born in Erie County, Penn., August 7, 1836. His parents, Edson Hart and Helen Elizabeth (Priestly) Hart, were married in New Brunswick, N. J., and settled in Erie County, Penn. Edson Hart was a native of Connecticut, and was a Presbyterian minister. Mrs. Helen E. Hart was born in New Jersey. In 1840, they removed and settled in Union County, Ky., and there remained five years, when they became residents of New Albany, Ind., where George O. Hart was chiefly educated, and where his business career began. He engaged in the drug business in 1856, which he conducted for about six years, and then became associated with E. R. Hart and J. B. Archer in the steamboat trade, on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, between Louisville, Ky., and Memphis, Tenn.; this he continued until the close of the war, and in 1867 located in Paducah and established a wholesale and retail hardware business, which he is now still successfully operating, under the firm name of George O. Hart & Son. It is perhaps true that Mr. Hart is doing the most extensive hardware business of any dealer in western Kentucky, his annual sales reaching $150,000. Mr. Hart married Miss Addie H. Stout, daughter of Dr. J. B. Stout, of New Albany, Ind.; she died in Paducah, Ky., in 1875, leaving four children: George B., a member of the firm; Addie H., Anna and Lena H. Hart. His present wife, to whom he was married in 1876, is a daughter of Capt. John F. Harriss; she is the mother of one son, Edson Hart. Mr. Hart is a deacon in the Presbyterian Church of Paducah.