Ann "Nancy" (Morgan) Hart... When did she die?

To be honest I just found out about the Georgia heroine Nancy Hart back in September 2019. I discovered her when searching for more information on my ancestor Mark Morgan of Orange Co., North Carolina.

Mark Morgan, himself, was an interesting character in his own right. Apparently, most of the earlier sources for Nancy, claimed it was a Thomas Morgan who was her father. One researcher, however, a Bob Lackey pointed out at the old Genforum website that Sarah Morgan, Mark's widow actually listed an "Ann Hart" as her daughter. That pretty much does it for me, although it may not be absolute proof.

Anyway, since discovering that Nancy Hart was most likely a great grand aunt of mine, I began reading up on her. It seems to be an accepted fact that she moved with her son John Hart to Kentucky and died in about 1830 in Henderson Co., Kentucky where she was buried at what is known as the Book Cemetery in that county. In the 1930s a grave was erected for her by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The only problem is that when I looked up the 1820 census record for John Hart she was not listed on the record. There was only one woman 45+ which would have been John's wife Patience. The story of Nancy's last years further claimed that she stayed with her daughter-in-law Patience after her son's death. There is an 1830 census record listing Patience as the head-of-the-household, but no record of another elderly female. Of course, some might say that was because she died before the 1830 census was taken. That could be true, but, why wasn't she found in the 1820 census?

There is an interesting tidbit of information from an article written by E. Merton Coulter in the 1950s entitled Nancy Hart, Georgia Heroine of the Revolution: The Story of the Growth of A Tradition. In the article he reports that, "A descendant of Nancy's wrote in 1901 that at the time of the funeral there was a total eclipse of the sun, and that it ought to be easy to find the exact date by determining when the eclipse took place. He thought it was 'about 1815 or 1820.'" This information came from the November 1, 1901 edition of the Hartwell Sun.

I could not locate any John Harts in Henderson County in the 1810 census. I did find two Johns in Kentucky that could have been the same John Hart but there is no evidence that either was the right one. Neither had another woman listed though who could have been Nancy Hart. But, let's just assume that Nancy did live with John and Patience in Henderson County. Could it be possible that she died sometime between 1815 and 1820? And could it be true that she was buried during a total eclipse?

There only seem to be two total solar eclipses that would have hit Kentucky around this period. One was June 16, 1806, and the other was November 30, 1834. There were no total eclipses within the 1815 to 1820 timeframe.

Maybe it was just an eclipse and not a "total eclipse." Let's see what other eclipses there were that might be the one referenced by one of her descendants. There were several annular solar eclipses between 1809 and 1831. An annular eclipse is when the moon covers the sun's center and there is something like a ring of fire revealed around the edges.

So, the dates in which these eclipses happened were April 14, 1809; August 27, 1821; February 21, 1822; September 28, 1828; and February 12, 1831. Of course, since I am not an expert some of these eclipses may or may not have been seen from the Henderson County area.

If the descendant's comments are to be believed on when she died and that there was a solar eclipse of any kind then the two closest dates for an eclipse were 1821 and 1822. Of course, there is still the problem of the census of 1820 for the only John Hart is living in Henderson County and it does not register his aged mother on the schedule.

If the story, that she lived with her son John is true, and that she moved with him and his family to Kentucky, could she have possibly died in April of 1809?

Considering how sometimes people's memories can fail them, more information needs to be gathered to give too much credence to either the descendant's pieces of information or the stories of Nancy living until 1830 and as some claim even 1840!

The truth is Nancy was a real person and she does seem to have resisted the Loyalists who were prowling the countryside of her neighborhood of Elbert Co., Georgia during the American Revolution.

As far as when and where she died, that storyline still needs to be worked on.