The world of Briarmont, documented

1. 1857

   Hartwell Timber Co.

   Elias Hartwell of Rockport, Maine, came west in 1856 for lumber while most newcomers wanted gold. In 1857, not yet twenty, he founded Hartwell Timber Co. with eight men who cut redwood above this coast and lived in camp.

2. 1866

   A Town at Last

   Merchants, tradesmen and families followed the mill wages, and by 1866 the camp had become a town with more boarding houses than churches.

3. 1896

   The Old-Growth Survey

   By 1896 the bare hillsides above town were slipping, and the winter floods had grown worse. Hartwell slowed the cutting and paid for a small survey of the old growth left on the upper ridges, one of the first counts of what had not been cut.

4. 1911

   Hartwell's Will

   Elias Hartwell died in Briarmont in 1911, unmarried and in debt. His daughter, Adelaide Hartwell, was his executor. The milling works were sold to pay what the company owed, and the company ended with them.

5. 1918

   The Institute

   After several idle years, the town's trust founded the Oakridge Institute of Forestry and Land Sciences on the estate, as Adelaide Hartwell had pressed for, with no tie to the old company.

6. 1947

   Oakridge College

   On July 1, 1947, the Institute was accredited as Oakridge College, after nearly thirty years as a forestry school, with Agnes Corliss as its first president; the arts, the humanities and the coastal sciences came later.

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