American Marine Awarded Purple Heart: Murray Endicott Hart

Murray Endicott Hart son of George Pierpont Estes Hart and Margaret Crowell Hogg Hart, was born November 8, 1899 and died January 11, 1961. He was a Marine who served in Germany during WWI. He was a bugler and a point man that went ahead of the troops to scout for the enemy. He fought in the Battle of Chateau Thierry in May 1918. He was awarded the Purple Heart because he was wounded twice during the war. 

Once when he was wounded, he was thought to be dead and was placed with others who had died. He lay there all day before he was able to get someone's attention to let them know he was alive. He continued to live in Germany for about a year after the war was over. 

He moved back to Danville, Virginia, where his parents lived, and met Jessie Inez Sweatt/Swett, whom he married on December 27, l921. They moved in with Inez's mother, Eva Sweatt in Schoolfield,Va. Schoolfield is now a part of Danville, Va., but back then it was a mill town built by the Schoolfield family where their employees lived in houses built for them by the Schoolfields. Inez's mother worked in the cotton mill. 

The house was on Park Avenue where their oldest daughter Murray Elizabeth Hart and their second daughter, Helen Virginia Lee Hart, were born. Around 1926 or 1927, the family moved in with Murray's mother, Margaret, on Cole Street in Danville, VA. Margaret's husband, George P. E. Hart had died in 1924 and Margaret had become very ill. Inez took care of Margaret and her infant daughter, Helen, who was also very ill and not expected to live; but she did. 

During this time, Murray and Inez had a third daughter, Sarah Kimball Hart. The family continued to live with Margaret until her death in 1929. Soon after his mother's death, Murray purchased about an acre of land in nearby Providence, North Carolina. He and a teenager named Julius Daves cut the trees from the land and skinned the bark off with a drawing knife and used the wood to build a large three-room log cabin. It consisted of a large living room with a rock fireplace, a kitchen and one bedroom. It had a large front porch and a closed in back porch with a storage room. They also built a well and an outhouse. Murray Hart worked for The Singer Sewing Machine Company. 

During the depression, people with small sewing machines that needed repair would contact him. He would go to their homes to repair the machines and the people would pay him with eggs, chickens, guineas or whatever they raised on their farms. In 1935 Murray and Inez divorced. 

Murray moved to Florida where he remarried. Children of Murray Hart and Jessie (Sweatt) Hart:  Murray Elizabeth , Helen Virginia Lee, Sarah Kimball Murray died January 11, 1961 in Daytona, Florida.  Contributed by Joan Hayes MYHARTT.COM 

Murray Endicott Hart, infant---probably Charles Nathaniel Hart died first year, and Parker Estes Hark, the children of  George Pierpont and Margaret Hoagg.