Fresno County, California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


FINNEY MILLER HART.� An hospitable old gentleman who was one 
of the first settlers in the Dakota Colony and has certainly "improved his 
talent," to use Scriptural phraseology, for he has improved the land he ac- 
quired and made of it a nice farm, is Finney Miller Hart, who came to the 
Kerman district in the fall of 1909. He was born in Camden. Preble County, 
Ohio, on March 20, 1847, the son of Silas Hart, also a native of Ohio, who was 
a farmer there. Silas Hart became an Argonaut, for he came to California 
as a sailor in 1849, sailing around Cape Horn, and he was seeking his fortune 
in the mines for six years. His oldest son John joined him two or three years 
later, and afterward removed to Washington, where he died. Silas Hart re- 
turned to Ohio, where he passed away. His wife was Hannah Slinger, a 
native of Ohio, and she died in the Buckeye State. She was the mother of 
seven boys and two girls; and four boys are now living. 

Tile second youngest of these, F. M., was brought up in Ohio and there 
attended the public schools. From a boy he learned farming, but when he 
was eighteen he enlisted in the United States Arm}' and served until after 
the war. On attaining his twenty-second year, he came to Missouri and 
farmed for a year in Daviess County, and then he went to Marion. Linn 
County, Iowa, where he bought a farm. This he improved and operated, 
and then he removed to Cherokee County, Kans., where he bought 200 acres. 
He also came to own another strip of 127 acres, and still another block of 
forty acres. He raised corn and hogs, added to the region's wealth, and 
gained both prosperity and experience for himself. 

Having spent three winters in Los Angeles, he liked California so well 
that he decided to settle here, so in 1909 he sold out and came to Fresno 
County. He bought in the Dakota Colony some sixty acres of land covered 
with weeds, but by hard work he leveled and checked it for alfalfa and set out 
a peach and an apricot orchard. He also established a high-grade dairy. Of 
late he has been setting out a small Thompson seedless vineyard. These 
valuable improvements have greatly added to the attraction, not only of the 
property owned by Mr. Hart, but of the neighborhood in general. On Jan- 
uary 31, 1919, he sold off thirty acres on the west end, but still retains thirty 
acres. 

In Linn County, Iowa, Mr. Hart and Miss Celia Wright were married 
and began what promised to be the happiest of mated lives. She was a native 
of that section, but she died there. Her blessed heritage was four children: 
Charles, who died in Denver; Rosalinda, who is Mrs. Penn and resides in 
Eastern Colorado ; Clarence, a rancher in this district ; and Walter, also a 
rancher here. 

Mr. Hart belongs to the California Peach Growers, Inc., and vigorously 
supports its cooperative work ; and in civic duties he follows the great prin- 
ciples for which the Democratic party stands.