California Biographies Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Source: History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from its earliest settlement to the present time. Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905 Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176 TRUMAN GEORGE HART. Prominent among the younger generation of business men of Fresno county is Truman G. Hart, of Fresno, a man well known throughout the San Joaquin valley, and everywhere respected. He is an excellent representative of the native- born sons of California, and in his every-day life exemplifies in a marked degree the influ- ences of heredity, environments and training upon the mind. A son of Judge Charles A. and Ann (Brennan) (McKenzie) Hart, he was born April 9, 1866, in Millerton, Fresno county. For further ancestral history see the sketch of Judge Charles A. Hart, which may be found on another page of this volume. Having obtained the rudiments of his education in the public schools of Millerton and Fresno, Truman G. Hart in 1882 entered St. Augustine's College, in Benicia, whence he was graduated in 1886. Locating then in Fresno, he became identified with the Fresno County Abstract Company, which he served as its business manager for a number of years. In 1894 he was elected county clerk of Fresno county on the Republican ticket, receiving the large majority of seven hundred votes. Taking the oath of office in January, 1895, Mr. Hart served most faithfully for four years, at the end of his term declining a renomination for the office. Becoming a pioneer in the oil industry, he was one of the organizers, and a director of the Producers' & Consumers' Oil Company, which put down wells on sections 20, township 19, range 15, and succeeded in finding a good flow of oil. Subsequently dis- posing of his stock in that company, Mr. Hart assisted in organizing the Oil City Petroleum Company, of which he is president. This company has a tract of three hundred and twenty acres, lying in section 28, township 19, range 15, on which are eleven finely producing wells, all of good capacity. He was also one of the organizers, and is president, of the Twenty- eight Oil Company, which owns one hundred and sixty acres of land in section 28, and has eleven wells in operation, each one having a capacity of four hundred barrels of oil per day. Mr. Hart is also identified with other financial enterprises, holding an interest in mining prop- erty in Madera county, and being president, and one of the incorporators, of the Fresno Realty & Agency Company, which lays out and builds up additions to the city, and han- dles real estate of all kinds. In advancing and promoting the interests of the numerous com- panies with which he is officially associated, Mr. Hart is the leading spirit, his business ability and judgment being unquestioned. In Fresno, September 29, 1892, Mr. Hart married Augusta A. Trowbridge, who was born and reared in Illinois. Politically Mr. Hart is a stanch advocate of the principles of the Re- publican party, and socially he is a charter member of the Sequoia Club. In his religious belief he is an Episcopalian.