About Mr. Hartt

Mr. Hartt has been teaching middle school and high school English at Maimonides since 2004. His favorite units to teach are "Science Fiction and the Individual," "Where's Walden?" and "The Lost Generation." Click here to read his statement of teaching philosophy.doc as it applies to writing. You can visit his other class websites at eng11.pbwiki.com and eng10.pbwiki.com.

He is the faculty advisor of the student literary magazine Current (recently selected to receive a rank of Superior in the 2007 NCTE Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines). Mr. Hartt also writes his own poetry. Read his poem "The You The Me The Sudden Elsewhere"  (from the online magazine Stonework).

You asked about the spelling of my name...

The most prominent variations of Hartt are Hart, Harth, Hardt, and Herte. The word hart comes from the Old English and refers to a male deer, more specifically the male Red Deer, or elk. The Hartt crest features three stags on a shield of blue and red, and topped by a knight's war helmet. The Hartt motto is Deo adjuvante vincam, meaning "I shall conquer with God's help."

The Hartt lineage can be traced to Isaac Hart (1614-1699) of Scratby, County Norfolk, England. In 1636, as the servant (or tutor) of Richard Carver, he sailed from Yarmouth on a ship named the Rose. He eventually purchased land in Lynn, Massachusetts and, in 1650, married and had eight children by Elizabeth Hutchinson. Isaac became a soldier in King Phillips War and served in Captain Gardner's company from February 1675 until November 1676. Elizabeth Hart was unjustly accused of witchcraft (by Ann Putnam of Salem) and sent to a Boston prison on May 18, 1692. Her son Thomas was only able to secure her release in December.

Isaac's grandson Jonathan Hartt (1710-1790) was the youngest child of Samuel and Sarah (Endicott) Hart. Until 1763, he and Mercy (Hawkes) Hartt lived on land in Lynn/Lynnfield inherited from his uncle Thomas. They and their four sons moved to Nova Scotia during the Planter Migration of 1763-1764 and settled along the St. John River. Over the next decade, as tension grew between the American colonies and Great Britain, the loyalty of certain emigrants from Massachusetts was clearly with the colonies. Jonathan Hartt became of the agitators who sought to bring Nova Scotia into the Revolutionary War. He helped organize meetings and made speeches. One such speech landed him in court on June 20, 1775, charged with uttering treasonable words against his sovereign. He was made to pay a fine of two shillings for saying, "The King is a damned snotty whelp and if I were near him I would stab him for he is nothing but a R....B...." Jonathan and his sons continued to participate in events that led to the Eddy Rebellion of 1776. Jonathan's revolutionary views divided the family and caused some to move north to Maugerville, NS rather than rebel against the authorities. The Hart name changed to Hartt at this time - possibly as Jonathan's attempt to distance himself (a Unionist) from his England-loving kin (Royalists).

My namesake was an idealist and a patriot. He risked his life and his family's love for the cause of representational government and certain inalienable rights. As his grandson, I am concerned for this nation in the wake of 9/11, and I wonder at the prescience of H. L. Mencken who once wrote: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

You asked about my wife Ruth...

She's an amazing operatic performer and choral director! Click here to check out her website.