Dr. Hartwell cast his lot with the destiny of Jamestown in the second year of its birth, July 16, 1879, which was practically his first field in the medical profession.

Dr. Hartwell is a native of Hancock county, Illinois, born in 1854 at the little station of Bowen, where he met with an accident (thrown from a horse), which caused him the loss of a leg when about twelve years of age. He received his earlier education at the village school of Bowen. In 1874, he with several of his young companions, began reading medicine in the office of Dr. Kelley, of Bowen, without any serious intentions of continuing. The others all dropped out, but Dr. Hartwell proceeded to pursue the study of physics, and in 1876 entered the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he graduated March 27, 1878.

Within four months after arriving in Jamestown, he opened a drug store, the town being illy supplied in that line. He has the only drug store in the city at the present time.

The Hartwells are of Welch origin. Dr. Hartwell's father was a native of New York, but in his early manhood moved to Ohio and thence to Illinois, where he lived until 1876, when the family came to Marshall county, Kansas. He died in Jamestown in 1897, Dr. Hartwell's mother died when he was about four years of age. He is one of eight children, two of the older brothers died of diseases in the army, brought on by exposure and hardships.

Mrs. Hartwell was Miss Amelia Resing, of Pottawatomie county, Kansas. Their family consists of two children, Eva, aged eleven and George, aged nine. They lost a little son, Clarence, aged sixteen by accident in the winter of 1900. He was hunting and was shot through the foot by the accidental discharge of his gun. Lockjaw ensued and he died a week later.

Dr. Hartwell is extensively interested in farming and stock raising. He has a farm of one hundred and ninety acres near Jamestown, the Kiggan homestead, one of the old farms of the county and one hundred and twenty acres one and one-half miles west of Jamestown, in the Buffalo creek valley. Both of these farms are bottom land. He has a pasture farm one mile south of Jamestown, where he keeps a herd of about fifty head of native cattle; Shorthorn and Galloway breeds.