WILLIAM AUSTIN HART, Buffalo, N. Y., eldest son of Aaron, of Wallingford and Barkhamsted, and his wife, Annis (Austin), born January 13th, 1797, at Barkhamsted, Conn.; married January 22d, 1821, Mary Ann Sumerton, of Sempronius, N. Y., born, February, 1801. He was a gunsmith at Buffalo, N. Y., and learned his trade at Hartford, Conn., where he spent several years in gunsmithing and making cutlery. A very lengthy article was published at Buffalo as an eulogy and obituary at his decease, August 9th, 1865, aged 68 years, in the Daily Courier of August, 1865, in which his character as a man and Christian is highly extolled. Mr. Hart was a natural mechanic, and took out the first patent for a percussion lock when the old flint lock was given up. This patent is dated February 20th, 1827, and is signed John Quincy Adams, President, Henry Clay, Secretary of State, and William Wirt, Attorney-General. It sets forth that William A. Hart has invented a new and useful improvement in the percussion gun lock for rifles, muskets, fowling-pieces, pistols, &c., called “Hart’s Percussion Gun Lock.” The improvement in those days attracted no little attention, and on the 23d of February the commissioner of patents wrote him a congratulatory letter, in which he said, “I am pleased to find so much genius accompanied with so much morality.” He became a member of the Episcopal Church at Fredonia, N. Y., where he resided for a time. When he removed to Buffalo he joined Trinity Church, and became a vestry-man, and subsequently assisted in organizing St. John’s Church, of which he was a constituent member. His widow died May 3d, 1871, aged 70 years.

2605. Austin Sumerton, born January 2d, 1827, He is a tinner.
2606. Ellen Douglass, born April 25th, 1829; died October 24th, 1868.

IRA WILDER HART, Erie, Penn., second son of Aaron Hart, of Pornfret, Chautauqua County, N. Y., and his wife, Annis (Austin), born           , 1804; married Eliza Metcalf, who died, when second he married her sister, Lucy, who also died, when third he married Martha Mason, of Vermont. He was a stage and ticket agent, in 1871, at Erie, Penn., and was living there, but in 1873. His son, James, took his position as general freight agent there.

2607. James Charles, born December 20th, 1832; married September 11th, 1862, Adelaide Marvin,