Legal status

This Collection contains the personal and business correspondence, legal documents, and account and ledger books of the Hart family, 1755-1898. The papers are primarily concerned with Aaron Hart (1792-1801); Adolphus Hart (1846-1876), Benjamin Hart (1792); and Ezekiel Hart (1799-1862). Hart family corresponts included in this collection include Sir James Henry Craig, governor of Canada; and James Reid, Chief Justice of Lower Canada.

Gerald Hart's (1869-1897) papers constitute half of the collection. Among the latter are extensive references to paintings and coins collected by Gerald Hart, and information relating to the Society for Historical Studies-Society of Canadian Literature and the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society.

Also included is a family biography in manuscript, and an 1821 militia roll of Captain Hart's company.

Contains letters and articles in manuscript to Leeser pertaining to: his work as editor of The Occident, his translation of the Bible and his other literary works; discussions concerning Jewish law, the Reform movement in the United States and in Curaçao; Reform and Orthodox Judaism in Albany, N.Y., Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson's anti-Semitic comments in the United States Congress; the founding of a synagogue in San Francisco; the condition of Jews and Jewish education in America and in England; equal rights for Jews in Massachusetts and North Carolina; the controversy over the Touro Monument; slavery and the Civil War; and converts to Judaism. Also includes information on Israel Joseph Benjamin's trip in the U.S., 1859-1862; Isaac Mayer Wise; Sabato Morais; a manuscript guidebook on Jewish ritual slaughter written by Moses Julian in Barbados in 1820; Moses Montefiore's report on his mission to Rome on behalf of the Edgardo Mortara affair; articles discussing Christian theology; the Jews in Cochin, India and in China; a Latin preface to Leeser's Hebrew Bible; a Portuguese prayer against the evil eye; and poems on topics of Jewish interest.