From BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA New Jersey 1877

DE HART, COLONEL WILLIAM, Officer in the Revolutionary army, Lawyer, late of Morristown, New Jersey, was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, December 7th, 1746, and was the son of Dr. Mathias De Hart. Before the outbreak of the contest between the colonists and Great Britian, he was actively engaged in professional labors as a legal practitioner, but relinquished his vocation at the approach of open hostilities.

November 7th 1775, he received the appointment of Major in the 1st New Jersey Battery, and in the course of the ensuing year was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. September 6th 1780, he again received a Lieutenant - Colonelcy in the 2d Regiment, Continental Army. Before the close of the war he resigned his commission, and in Morristown, New Jersey, resumed the profession of the law. He was a leading member of the bar where he practised, and was noted for his brilliant sallies of wit and humor, which seemed ever ready to lash forth at an instant's warning, and at the slightest provocation. In 1779 he acted as President of the St. Tammany Society.

Two of his brothers, also, were efficient partisans of the patriot cause, one of them having been aide to General Wayne before he was killed at Fort Lee, in 1780. He died at Morristown, New Jersey, June 16th, 1801.

Contributed by: John R. DeHart
Document Prepared by: Gloria Lambert