website watertownhistory.org
ebook History of Watertown,
Wisconsin
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
Cross
Reference:
City of Watertown, Wisconsin: Architectural and Historical Intensive Survey
Report, 1986-1987, pgs
318-322.
