Born Francis Brett Hart in Albany, New York, on 25 August 1836 to Henry Hart, a teacher, and Elizabeth Ostrander Hart, young Hart (whose parents later added an e to the surname) was called Frank as a child. He was educated in the home and, before the death of his father in 1845, in small academies and ordinary schools located in towns and villages along the Hudson River where his father taught. After his father died, he moved with his mother to New York City, where he continued in school. According to family tradition, he read William Shakespeare at the age of six, Charles Dickens at seven, and Montaigne at eight. At thirteen he quit school to work as a clerk. He later joined a local military company that helped to quell the Astor theater riots.
With his younger sister Margaret he sailed for San Francisco in 1854 to rejoin his mother and her second husband, Andrew Williams, the first mayor of Oakland, whom she had recently married.
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