Isaac Hart

Isaac Hart (died November 23, 1780) was an English-born Jewish merchant in Newport, Rhode Island, and a Loyalist during the American Revolution. He helped found Newport's synagogue, now the Touro Synagogue, and was killed in a Patriot raid on a Loyalist post on Long Island.

Newport

Hart left England around 1750 and settled in Rhode Island, where he became one of the wealthiest merchants in the colony and a leader of Newport's Jewish community. His brothers Jacob, Naphtali, Samuel, and Abraham were also merchants in Newport.

Hart sat on the committee that raised money for Newport's synagogue. In 1759 he was one of three trustees, with Jacob Rodrigues Rivera and Moses Levy, who bought the land on which it stands, and the building was erected by his family firm, Naphtali Hart and Company.

Revolution and death

The Hart family were Loyalists; the historian Jacob Rader Marcus concluded that apparently all of them sided with the Crown. When the British evacuated Newport in 1779, the family left with them and resettled on Long Island. In 1780 the Rhode Island legislature passed an act banishing a number of Loyalists, including members of the Hart family, and their estates were confiscated.

Hart was among a group of Rhode Island Loyalist refugees establishing a fortified post at Smith's Point, at Manor St. George on Long Island's south shore. On November 23, 1780, the post was captured by Continental troops under Benjamin Tallmadge in the Battle of Fort St. George, and Hart was killed. A Loyalist account published in Rivington's Royal Gazette said that Hart was shot and bayoneted while trying to surrender, wounded in fifteen places, and died a few hours later.