Frank Hart (athlete)
Frank Hart (1857 or 1858 - 1908) was an American athlete famous as the first African-American world record holder in the 19th century sport of pedestrianism. His most noted win was in an 1879 6 Day Race at Madison Square Garden where he covered 565 miles and won $21,567 in prize money (). Born in 1857 or 1858 as Fred Hichborn (or a similar spelling), Hart immigrated to Boston from Haiti as a teenager and worked as a grocery store clerk before joining races to earn extra money. Frank Hart was chosen as his stage name, and  he was variously also known as "The Negro Wonder" and "Black Dan", after his mentor and promoter Dan O'Leary. While the sport of pedestrianism was short-lived in popularity, Hart was ultimately one of the first black sports celebrities in America. The first black athlete depicted on a sports card, trading card or tobacco card, Hart appears in Thomas H. Hall’s 1880-1892 Between the Acts & Bravo Cigarettes (N344), along with 9 other pedestrians. Hart later played shortstop and second base in Negro league baseball. In 1883, he was a member of the Boston Vendome Hotel B.B.C. team, and  in 1883-1884, Hart played for Saratoga Spring's Leonidas B.B.C. According to The Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues: Historians Reappraise Black Baseball, "Henry Bridgewater recruited Hart for the St. Louis Black Stockings." While no statistics are currently available for his tenure on the team, in May 1884", The Washington Bee" reported that the “colored pedestrian plays shortstop for a colored baseball club known as the St. Louis Black Stockings.” Hart eventually signed with Chicago's Illinois Gordon B.B.C. In Hart’s obituary in 1908, the "Cleveland Gazette" noted, “Like many other sporting men, he was a big liver and  a good spender,’’ reportedly living off “the charity of friends” for his final 20 years.