Wife Eugene De Forest
Queer Places:
Yale University (Ivy League), 38 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven, CT 06520
210 Turk St, San Francisco, CA 94102, USA
Oak Hill Memorial Park, 300 Curtner Avenue, San Jose, California 95125 United States
John Milton Hart (June 5, 1845 - July 23, 1893) was born in West Cornwall, Connecticut, on June 5, 1845. He prepared for higher education at the Hopkins Grammar School in
New Haven before entering Yale College in 1863. His college years were marked by a severe bout of typhoid fever during his junior year, an illness that classmates noted
left a lasting impact on his health for the rest of his life.
After graduating from Yale with the Class of 1867, Hart spent several years teaching at schools in Rutherford Park and Wyckoff, New Jersey, before returning to New Haven in 1870 to teach at the local Truant School. Resigning from his teaching post in 1874, he pursued studies at the progressive Union Theological Seminary in New York City, completing his degree in May 1876.
While working as a journalist and clergyman on the East Coast, Hart met performer and elocutionist Eugene De Forest, who was then using the birth name Mary Bradley. The two were married in Newtown, Connecticut, on September 7, 1877. De Forest later described their relationship as a purely platonic arrangement, which provided mutual support while allowing De Forest to navigate strict 19th-century societal expectations. By 1880, the couple relocated to California, settling first on Turk Street in San Francisco before eventually moving south to San Jose, where De Forest taught and performed dramatic arts.
Hart passed away in San Jose on July 23, 1893, at the age of 48, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery. Though Yale alumni publications noted that little was heard from him in his later years, his legacy is uniquely tied to early American transgender history.
Shortly after Hart's death, on September 1, 1893, Eugene De Forest made regional headlines by stepping out into downtown San Jose dressed openly in full men’s fashion. In an interview published the following day in the San Jose Daily Mercury, De Forest shared that he had felt male since early childhood and revealed that Hart had been fully aware and supportive of his true identity throughout their marriage. From his deathbed, Hart had encouraged De Forest to shed women's clothing and live authentically as a man, offering a rare testament of spousal understanding and acceptance for the era.
References:
 Public Faces, Secret Lives by Wendy L. Rouse |
Other references:
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