Andrew Wilson Hartnett

ANDREW WILSON HARTNETT. The firm credited with the most extensive operations in the real estate field in Stafford County is Hartnett & Hagenmaster of Stafford. The senior member of this firm is not only an old time business man of that locality but has had many active civic relations with the community and is the present mayor of Stafford.

The Hartnetts were pioneers in Kansas, locating here when Kansas was still a territory. Andrew Hnrtnett's grandfather, Joseph Hartnett, was born and married in Ireland, and after coming to the United States located on a farm in Wisconsin, where he spent the rest of his days. Charles H. Hartnett, who was the founder of the family in Kansas, was born in New York City in 1836. He was a small boy when his parents moved to Wisconsin and he grew up in that territory and state. In 1856 he joined a colony that traveled overland to Kansas, and established his home in Jackson County. He was a blacksmith by trade and soon moved from Jackson to Shawnee County, where he set up a shop. In 1876 he homesteaded a quarter section and also took a timber claim in Stafford County, and moved his family to his claim the next year. He lived on his 320 acres until 1891, and died in Stafford in 1893. He was a democrat politically, was a man of prominence, and held a number of township offices. He was in Kansas during the Civil war and enlisted and served a term in a Union regiment.

Charles H. Hartnett married Mary J. Lutz, who was born in Philadelphia in 1836 and is still living at Stafford, at the age of eighty-three. She and her husband were married in Jackson County, Kansas. Their children were: John B., a farmer at Stafford; Ella, wife of Mr. Miller, a farmer at Wellington, Kansas; Maggie, living at Holly, Colorado, widow of Oscar Lozar, a business man of that town who died in 1918; Charles H., a farmer in Kiowa County, Kansas; William D., operator of the telephone exchange at Pratt, Kansas; James B., a saw mill man in Arkansas; Grace, who died at St. John, Kansas, wife of Harvey Sayer, a lawyer now living in California; Bird May, wife of James B. Milliken, of Stafford; Andrew Wilson; and Daisy, wife of Ernest Darr, a resident of Stafford and manager of the Larabee brothers farm.

Andrew Wilson Hartnett was born November 2, 1877. The date of his birth has a special significance to the Hartnett family as indicating the time that his parents were on their way by "prairie schooner" from Shawnee County to Stafford County. The prairie schooner was still in Wabaunsee County when Andrew W. was born. He grew up on his father's homestead, attended the country schools, and in 1898 graduated from the Stafford High School. For four years he was a teacher in his home county, and then took up the real work of his life as a real estate and insurance man. The firm of Hartnett and Hagemaster has not only the largest business of its kind in Stafford, but the largest in Western Kansas. Their offices are in the First State Bank Building. The firm in 1918 owned farms in different parts of the state aggregating 2,000 acres, besides a business building on Main Street in Stafford and fifteen dwelling houses in that town. Mr. Hartnett has a modern home, which he built in 1910. He is an independent republican in politics and has served as city clerk and was elected mayor in 1915, being re-elected for a second term in 1917. He is a member and trustee of the Congregational Church, and is affiliated with Stafford Lodge No. 252, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. Wichita Consistory No. 2 of the Scottish Rite, Wichita Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and is a member of Stafford Camp, Modern Woodmen of America, and Stafford Lodge of the Woodmen of the World.

In 1910, at Emporia, Mr. Hartnett married Miss Jessie Stone, daughter of F. O. and Ethel (Foster) Stone, the latter now deceased. Her father is an oil inspector for the state, with offices in Wichita and home in Emporia. Mrs. Hartnett died in February, 1918, the mother of two children: Andrew Stone, born March 22, 1911, and Mary, born February 5, 1913.

Pages 2422-2423.