Steve Hart (1859–1880), a member of the 'Kelly gang', lived his whole short life in the country around Wangaratta. One of numerous children of Irish immigrant farmers, he went to the Catholic school in Wangaratta until he was about fifteen, when he fell in with a bunch of men engaged in horse dealing. He served several sentences for stealing horses, covering a total period of about a year in Beechworth gaol. There, fatefully, he befriended Ned Kelly’s brother Dan. On his release from gaol Hart undertook to remain on a lawful path, but soon tired of working at fencing and sawmilling and took off on his horse – according to legend crying ‘Here’s to a short life and a merry one!’ as he departed. Sergeant Steele, who had encouraged Hart, suspected he had become involved with Kelly, and warned his family to try to retrieve him. However, he was with Kelly at Stringybark Creek and became an outlaw henceforth; he took part in the bank robberies at Euroa and Jerilderie. After the siege of Glenrowan on 28 June 1880, in the course of which police set the Glenrowan Inn on fire, two charred corpses were pulled out of the inn. Reasonably assumed to be those of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart, they were buried together the following day at Greta. Unsurprisingly, rumours soon circulated that Kelly and Hart had not died on the day, but had escaped and decamped for Queensland or foreign lands.
