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Kensington, where their descendants still remain - the late Mrs. Ruth Hart was one of the family. Their son John, born , married Jan. 5th, 1691, Mehitabel Loomis, of Windsor [ It is now generally accepted that Deacon Stephen Hart did not have a daughter named Mehitabel (or Mehitable), but instead his third daughter was named Rachel. The following analysis of this appears in "The Great Migration Begins, Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633", Volume I, A-F, by Robert Charles Ander- son, Published by the Great Migration Study Project, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995. "The son-in-law John Cole named in the will of Stephen Hart is stated in some sources to have married a daughter Mehitable Hart [Bassett Gen 391; Flagg 258]. but evidence taken largely from the Winthrop medical records shows that John Cole of Farmington instead married Rachel, daughter of Stephen Hart. In late November 1657 John Winthrop Jr. treated "Rachell Hart of Farmington" and "Steven Hart her brother," and on 1 February 1657/8 he treated "Rachel Hart 16 years" [WMJ 58, 85]. She was a frequent patient throughout 1658 and 1659, being treated for an eye problem as a result of which she intermittently lost her sight [WM 98, 115, 151]. Beginning on 12 December 1664 John Winthrop Jr. began frequent treatments of Rachel Cole, wife of John Cole of Farmington, for eye problems and head pains [WMJ 579, 608, 611, 624, 637, 646, 653, 725, 909]. In his will of 12 September 1689 "John Coale Sr. of Farmington made a bequest to "my beloved wife Rachel," and asked Thomas Hart and Thomas Porter to be overseers [Manwaring 1:426-27]; Thomas Hart was brother of Rachel Hart, and Thomas Porter had married her elder sister, Sarah. John and Rachel (Hart) Cole had a son John who married in 1691 Mehitable Loomis, and this may be the source of the claim that Stephen Hart had a daughter Mehitable who married John Cole [Farmington LR 2:123]." ]JOHN HART, of Farmington, eldest son of Deacon Stephen Hart, of Braintree, Eng., Cambridge, Mass., Hartford and Farmington, Conn., born , in England, married Sarah . They resided in Farmington, where he was made a freeman by the General Court, at their May session, 1654. Sarah, his wife, joined the church at Farmington, Oct. 19th, 1653; he was admitted to the church April 2d, 1654. He was one of the first settlers of Tunxis, and bought his house lot of the original owners, and among the list of the eighty- four proprietors of 1672, is numbered the "Estate of John Hart." At the October session of the General Court, in 1660, a committee was raised to examine " Thirty Mile Island," with the view of settlement, when John Hart, of Farmington, was elected one of said committee. His sad and untimely death occurred on this wise, viz.: his house, which was located near the center of the village, was fired in the night by Indians, and he and all his family, with the exception of his eldest son, John, who was that night at Nod, or Northington, since called Avon, looking after the stock on a farm they owned there, perished in the flames. What aggravated the public calamity was the burning of the town records, at the same time. The General Court made diligent search among the Tunxis tribe for the incendiaries, but this neither restored life nor records. This fire occurred , 1666. [This fire may not have occurred as described here. Research by David Mauro published in the July/August 1997 issue of Hart Historical Notes seems to show that no Indians were involved. Dr. C. Bickford of the Connecticut Historical Society is quoted: " The 19th century accounts of Farmington contain a lot of fiction. With- out any corroborating evidence to support Andrew's story, I had to conclude that it was without substance." There may have been a fire of unknown origin, though. From the "Hart Family History, Silas Hart, His Ancestors and Descendants." by William Lincoln Hart, 1942, Alliance, Ohio, page 17: "The Rev. Samuel Danforth, pastor of the first church in Roxbury kept a diary, and under the date of February 11, 1666 (O.S.) appears the following entry: "Tidings came to us from Connecticut how that on ye 15th of 10M66 Sergeant Hart, ye son of Deacon Hart and his wife, and six children were all burned in their house at Farmington, no man knowing how the fire was kindled, neither did any of the neighbors see ye fire till it was past remedy. The church there had kept a fast at this man's house two days before. One of his sons being at a farm, escaped the burning." " ]BRANCH OF JOHN HART FOLLOWS, THEIR CHILDREN BEING THIRD GENERATION.
8. Sarah, born in Farmington, about 1653, baptized Oct.
23d, 1653, burned to death in 1666. CAPT. JOHN HART, of Farmington, eldest son of John Hart and Sarah, his wife, (who were burned to death by the burning of their house, in 1666,) born in Farmington, about 1655, and baptized there April 2d, 1655, married , Mary, daughter of Deacon Isaac Moore, of Farmington, and both were admitted to the church there Nov. 24th, 1656. He was one of the appraisers of his uncle Stephen Hart's estate 1689. In May, 1695, he was confirmed by the General Court ensign
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