Ossian B. Hart

Who was Ossian B. Hart?

Ossian Bingley Hart was the tenth Governor of the U.S. state of Florida, and the first governor of Florida who was born in the state. Born in Jacksonville to Isaiah Hart, one of the city's founders, he was raised on his father's plantation along the St. Johns River. He was a lawyer in Jacksonville. He moved to a farm near Fort Pierce, Florida in 1843, where he became a founding member of the St. Lucie County Board of Commissioners. In 1845, Hart became Florida State Representative for St. Lucia County. In 1846 he moved to Key West where he resumed his law practice. In 1856, he moved to Tampa, Florida.

Despite his upbringing, Hart was a Republican and openly opposed secession from the United States, causing some difficult times for him during the American Civil War. Following the war, he helped reestablish the governments of the state and of the city of Jacksonville. In 1868, he was appointed a justice of the Florida Supreme Court. In 1870, he ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress, only to be elected governor two years later on January 7, 1873. He appointed Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs as Florida's first African American Superintendent of Public Instruction. Following the campaign, he fell ill with pneumonia and died in Jacksonville. He was succeeded by lieutenant governor Marcellus Stearns, Florida's last Republican governor until 1967.