John Seely Hart

During the year following his graduation, he taught, as Principal of an Academy at Natchez, Mississippi, and in 1831 returned to Princeton and entered the Theological Seminary.

In 1872 he was elected Professor of Belles Lettres and English Literature in Princeton College, which chair he filled two years, returning near the end of 1874 to Philadelphia, where he resided until his death, engaged in literary pursuits.

About two months before his death, he suffered a severe fall upon an icy pavement on Chestnut Street, breaking his hip-bone and inflicting internal injuries.

Prof. Hart was a man of quiet and retiring manners, yet social and sunny in his temperament, an enthusiast in the cause of education, a devoted Sabbath-school worker, of elegant culture, accurate and wide scholarship, author of many volumes, and possessing great force and earnestness of mind.

[citation needed] In 1902 famous artist and former Central High School student Thomas Eakins painted his posthumous portrait from a photograph.

[3] He wrote an immense number of books related to grammar and biography, including: This article incorporates text from Necrological Reports and Annual Proceedings of the Alumni Association of Princeton Theological Seminary.