Briarmont, CA
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The Hartwell Family

The Hartwell Family

By Briarmont Township Archives

The Hartwell family stands at the very origin of Briarmont. Though few Hartwells remain as individual figures in the record, the family name is woven through the entire town: its founding industry, its estate, and even the county itself carry the Hartwell name.

Family Tree

A Brief History

Elias Hartwell arrived in Northern California from Maine in 1856 and founded the Hartwell Timber Co. in 1857 with a modest crew of eight men to supply lumber for the railroads pushing west. He became the town's defining timber baron: his estate became the ground for Oakridge College, and his will shaped the town for generations after his death. He was a man of appetite, force, and command — he built Briarmont, but he also bound it to the appetite of an industry that could not last.

Today the Hartwell name endures across Briarmont in the institutions it founded and the places it left behind.

Family Timeline

  1. 1856

    Elias Hartwell arrives

    Born in Rockport, Maine, in 1838, Elias Hartwell reaches Northern California. Unlike the men still chasing gold, he sees the value in the redwoods, the labor, the coastal access — and a struggling settlement that can be made dependent on him.

  2. 1857

    The Hartwell Timber Company

    The Hartwell Timber Co. is founded with eight men. The timber boom begins, and Briarmont is transformed from a small coastal settlement into a company-driven timber town.

  3. 1858

    A county bears the name

    Elias makes claims to the nearby forests and officially forms Hartwell County — the family name written onto the map itself.

  4. 1859

    The county gets its sheriff

    The Hartwell County Sheriff's Department is founded; Elias appoints Edward Plainview its first Sheriff.

  5. 1860s

    Hartwell Manor rises

    Hartwell Manor is constructed — the family estate that will outlive the family.

  6. 1911

    The timber order ends

    Elias dies at seventy-three. He never married and had no children; the company dies with him, its assets sold to settle debts. His will directs the remainder "to the use and betterment of Briarmont and its people, in whatever manner may be deemed fitting by those who remain."

  7. 1918

    The estate becomes a campus

    After seven years of limbo — prolonged when executor Clarence Ashton died in 1916 — the estate becomes the ground of the Oakridge Institute. The Hartwell name passes from industry to learning.

  8. 1947

    The Manor changes hands

    As the Institute becomes Oakridge College, Theodore Crenshaw ceremonially hands Hartwell Manor to Arthur Bellamy — the estate now fully in the town's keeping, as the will intended.

Legacy