This hamlet, which is located on Section 30, Township 88, Range 4, was laid out by John W. Clark in 18—.  Here Clark built a saw-mill, and in 1853, began the erection of a flouring-mill. He had already opened a store and was keeping tavern. John Whitman settled in 1855, and started a black smith shop.  Two years after, a wagon shop was started, Clark furnishing the means.  The town flourished apace, for within the next year or two, a shoe shop was established, but by whom is now forgotten, and about the same time, a brick yard was started by Samuel Stansbury and his brother. A paint shop was also built by Jacob Williams.
     This is an incident in the early history of Hartwick. An Irishman, Patrick Kenna, used to haul wood to the burg with a yoke of oxen named " Back" and '' Bright," but never troubled himself as to whose land it grew on. Clark met him one day as he was going in with a load. Clark stopped and hailed him with the point blank question as to whose land he had gone on for the wood. Looking his interlocutor square in the eye, as he trudged by, Pat. answered, " Sure, Misther Clark, an' I niver asks ye where ye git your wood!'  Pat then cracked his whip, with a " Gee, Buck !" and drove on with his load.
     Clark was a driving, stirring man, but like thousands of others in the speculative era of 1856-7, went to the wall with liabilities much in excess of assets.  He went to California in 1858, and his property passed into other hands. Mr.
Whitman left the place before Clark, and with the departure of these two enterprising men the glory of Hartwick, as a business point, departed.
     In June, 1861, the Board of Supervisors, on motion of Clement Coffin, resolved to submit to vote whether or not a farm should be purchased for the maintenance of paupers, and the homestead formerly owned by Clark was

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temporarily leased by the county and used as a poor farm until the Board purchased the present site.
     Jacob Williams, referred to above, enlisted in the Greybeard Regiment in 1863.  He deserted shortly after, and returned. A. S. Blair, Esq., who was Deputy Provost Marshal, heard of his return, and also heard that Williams
had given out that he would not submit to be taken alive. Mr. Blair engaged J. C. Skinner to go with him, and as a precautionary measure took along a ponderous revolver.  Arriving at Williams' house, he got out, leaving his revolver in the buggy.  He went to the door on the side of the house whence Williams expected to escape, and gained access by inquiring if a painter lived there.  Williams was up stairs, but came down, little suspecting Mr. Blair's errand.  Blair told him his business, but Williams manifested no dangerous symptoms, merely asking the privilege of going up stairs to change his clothes.  Mr. Blair refused to allow this, whereupon Mrs. Williams remarked that it was not genteel to require him to undress before the women folks. Blair suggested they could retire themselves.  Williams changed his apparel, went along quietly, and was punished by having his pay stopped.
     The scenery at Hartwick is attractive in the extreme, the mill and dam adding much to the picturesque location of the town. The Maquoketa is bridged at this place by a graceful iron structure, which springs from a high rocky bank on the south side of the stream, and the north side rests on a high pier built of massive magnesian rock. The locality is an attractive one for picnic parties. In the gravel bed below the dam are found small geodes and beautiful agates.
     The mill is now owned by Furman Brothers, and is regarded as one of the best in the county.

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