Heth Hart, Man of the Mountain

DNA and Court records now prove that Heth is the son of Thomas the Elder & Esther Miles, and grandson of John B. Hart & Susannah Rush Heth and his family moved from Chatham County North Carolina in 1806 to Highland County, Ohio. 

 

"History of the Early Settlement of Highland County, Ohio",   pg 129-130, Chp 17  
Permission granted by Southern Ohio Genealogical Society Mel Haines Jan. 16th, 2007 Link

 

"This year (1806) Heth Hart, the father of Joel, with his family, arrived from North Carolina at Nat Popes.   Heth was a famous - a mighty hunter, indeed, and he carried a rifle of proportionate calibre-capable of throwing an ounce ball to a great distance for those days, and with such unerring aim as to prove fatal to whatever unlucky varmint happened within its range.   Shortly after he came out he erected a cabin at a spring at the upper side of George Wilson's orchard, on Clear Creek - the farm afterward owned by Albert Swearingen and converted into a vineyard.   This cabin was most characteristic in appearance.   It was built on the general model of the primative rough log cabin of the time, but the exterior was literally covered with the trophies of the chase.   The buck horns were generally tossed up on the roof, until, from the vast quantity slain by Heth, it became covered; while the sides and ends were literally plastered with the stretched skins of every variety of wild animal from deer down to raccoon.   In the interior were stowed bears skins, beaver, fox and all kinds of peltries known in this country as valuable in those days.   Added to these were the carcasses of deer hanging against the walls, from which the family cut and eat as hunger or inclination prompted.   Their beds were skins of animals and the ponderous rifle, tomahawk and shot pouch of otter skin, the skin of the face of the animal, nose down, swung for the flap, hung, when not in use, the first on two wooden hooks over the door and the others at the side, convenient at a moment's warning to be put in immediate requisition.   Heth and his sons followed the chase for many years, making the hills resound with the reports of their rifles, old Heth's being easily distinguished from all others by its unusually heavy report.   Indeed, to the people of the time it was known for miles around.   They could always tell when old Heth was out and tradition has it that his rifle could be heard reverberating through the still woods and over the hill as far as a four pounder.   Heth was a man of decided mark.   His nose was diseased and grew constantly larger and redder to the day of his death, and when he used to range the Clear Creek and Rocky Fork hills, as was always announced by the boom of his big gun, he wore moccasins, leather leggins, hunting shirt and fox skin cap, and his tremendous large and fiery looking nose was generally the first part of Heth that became visible through the brush after the report of his gun was heard."

 

1818 Sep : Ohio, Highland; Court; of Common Pleas, DB B pg 128; FHL 977.1845 P2m pg 115; State of Ohio vs Rebecca Hougham. Assault on Bridget Bell. Isaac Houghman and Roman Huffman (Runyon ?)went suretied for Rebecca.  According to this source Rebecca in Sep 1818 was charged with Assault on Bridge Bell in Highland County Court and "being the daughter of a Mountain Man (Heth Hart) She was ready and willing to use her guns."