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Ferdinand Hartwig Property

1907

Watertown Daily Times, 08 01 1907

The residence property at 718 West Main Street, familiarly known as the Hartwig property, was sold at sheriff's sale yesterday at 10:00 o'clock. The property was owned by Wm. Schulz at the town of Cottage Grove. The successful bidder was John W. Burns, the wood and coal dealer who bid in the property at $2,000. There were two other bidders but would have been more had the absentees not thought that the sale would have lasted longer. Mr. Burns recently bought at sheriff's sale the Northwestern Hotel property in the locality which he secured at $1,000. This gives Mr. Burns a strip of land from Main Street almost to the I. H. Henry box factory. The land purchased with the hotel property will be used for a wood and coal yard, when he will move into the residence property recently acquired.

Hartwig Home

Watertown Daily Times, 06 12 1976

West of Watertown on Highway 19 there is a small settlement that at one time was part of the extensive Hartwig farms. Away from the highway in the very center of his nearly 600 acres Ferdinand Hartwig Sr. built his large brick home during the Civil War years. Before the home was finished in 1864 the family lived there in a small more temporary dwelling.

Bricks were made in the kiln on the farm, seven rooms were built into the lower level or basement, and the family did most of their living and household chores in this area. There was a large kitchen, brick ovens that baked 17 loaves of bread at a time, a buttery, a wine cellar, the bee cellar and the wood storage room with outside entrance. All had brick floors.

Above, in the parlor, living room and dining room three barrels of sugar had been mixed with the plaster to give a glazed china like look to the walls. The home had one two story section and one three story section.

At the top of the three story section was the large room for entertaining, for sleeping or feather stripping bees. This was topped with a 20 window cupola, referred to by some as an Indian watch, but the Hartwigs used it for storage and drying corn for next season's planting. The home has deep window sills, large open stairs, and wide halls.

The Hartwigs had a large family of 12 children. During summer married children and grandchildren returned for long summer vacations. The original home as shown in old pictures had an iron fence.

The Hartwigs were the grandparents of Mrs. W. W. Arzberger and Harold Hartwig, two Watertown residents who remember well many of their early gatherings in this home. Mrs. Ferdinand Hartwig died in 1921 and the estate, smaller in size at that time, was purchased by a son, Reinhold Hartwig. He named it Bull Moose farms since he was quite a hunter and sportsman.

Since 1928 the home has been known as the Lunde home. The Herbert Lundes purchased the home and moved there in January 1928. The large brick home has had few changes in construction and has been well maintained through the years. The brick basement floors are now mostly concrete but the Lundes have made an effort to retain many of the original features of the home.

1982

07 26 1982

The home constructed in the mid-1800s by Ferdinand G. Hartwig has now been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The United States Department of Interior made the designation because of the home's significance in the early development of Wisconsin dairying. Now owned by Kirby and Judith Brant, the home is located at 908 County Lane in the northwest Watertown Mary Knoll subdivision. Built in 1864 by Ferdinand C. Hartwig, who immigrated from Prussia in 1948 and settled in Watertown in the 1950s, the home served a farm which was originally 600 acres. The farm comprised nearly all of the far northwest corner of the Dodge County portion of the city.

Cross Reference:

City of Watertown, Wisconsin: Architectural and Historical Intensive Survey Report, 1986-1987, pgs 318-322.