Preston County, West Virginia Biography of L. BERT HARTMAN This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: ********************************************** ***The submitter does not have a connection*** ********to the subject of this sketch.******** ********************************************** This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume II, pg. 558 Preston L. BERT HARTMAN. While for many years his energies have been concentrated on business and home affairs at Tunnelton, L. Bert Hartman, member of an old and well known family of this section of Preston County, had some half dozen years of varied experience and hardship in the frozen North, attracted there by the famous Klondike gold discoveries. Mr. Hartman was born within three miles of Tunnelton, August 1, 1876, and is a son of George W. Hartman. A more complete account of the Hartman family is given else- where. His father was a farmer and died at the age of seventy-six. L. Bert Hartman left the home farm when about sixteen years of age and finished his education in the Kingwood High School about the time he reached his majority. He then worked around the Tunnelton mines, helping as a car- penter to set up the tipple and other preliminary work. He was then in the train service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway at Grafton as an extra fireman for eighteen months. He left this, obeying a sudden impulse for great adventure in the gold country under the Arctic circle. He joined several others leaving Preston County, including Marion Boone, William Smalley, Adam Albright, and they first went to Seattle where they spent three weeks outfitting and shipped from there to Cook's Inlet on the steamer Del Norte, making the run without incident in twelve days and landing at Sun- rise City May 5, 1898. The country was still covered with ice and snow and the party waited for the ice to go out before attempting work. They prospected in that vicinity without results, and soon all of his companions deserted Mr. Hartman and returned to Preston County. Mr. Hartman, however, was not satisfied to go back without something to his credit beside the journey itself. With other associates he went into the interior, continuing his search for precious metal. At Cook's Inlet he met an old prospector from Los Angeles, N. D. Shippey, and the two were together as partners until he finished his exploration of the Copper River country. They trailed on foot the full length of the Matanooski River, crossing the divide between that and the Copper River country, trailed the full length of the Nelcina River, crossed Tazlina Lake and trailed the river of that name to the Copper River and eighty miles by sled up that stream. They left their sleds May 6th, went into camp and built a boat, whip- sawing a tree into lumber for that purpose. June 12th they started in their boat up the Copper, following the stream until it became a mere creek. The voyage terminated so near the foot of Mt. Rangel, an active volcano, that the earth about was all volcanic, with no metal. Returning to the scene where the boat was built, they loaded their outfit, dropped down to the mouth of the Sustichina River, started up that stream, and on the 6th of July the boat was over- turned and practically all the provisions and other equip- ment lost. The boat itself was saved, and in it they drifted down to Copper Center, where they replenished their pro- visions. They started to pack across to Cook's Inlet, their first landing place, a distance of about 450 miles. Each carried a pair of blankets, his food, and a sweater to sleep in, and they made the trip in thirty days. Having thus covered by trip and boat over three thousand miles in his prospecting adventures, Mr. Hartman decided to rest. He remained at the Inlet, working at making hydraulic pi"pes, until he earned the money to carry him back to Seattle. Then for a few weeks he was employed by an electric light company, and was then approached by a party desirous of his companionship in another trip to the frozen North. He could not resist the lure of adventure, and after landing at Skagway they crossed White Pass Summit with a dog team, encountering some of the greatest hardships of a frigid winter, though they made the trip of forty-five miles without other incident than the suffering caused by a temperature of 66 to 60 degrees below zero. At Lake Bennett Mr. Hartman arranged to take a one-horse sled load of hardware to Dawson City, a distance of 600 miles. He covered this journey alone in twenty days, once in extreme danger, when the horse broke through the ice, the animal and himself being saved by what seemed mere chance. He continued on and landed his merchandise at Dawson City, and while there he did teaming and freighting and also car- penter work. At times he prospected, but was never able to change his luck, and out of seven claims never realized a penny. In the fall of 1903 Mr. Hartman returned to Seattle, after having spent five and a half years in the Far North and having endured what to most people living in a temperate clime seem almost unbelievable hardships and difficulties and sufferings. Again and again he was plunged into icy water, endured the pangs of hunger and extreme fatigue, and had to fight swarms of mosquitoes whose attacks fre- quently caused the blood to ooze from his face and neck. While in the North he paid from fifty cents to a dollar for every letter received from friends at home, and these letters were delivered only months after having been posted. On reaching Seattle in 1903 Mr. Hartman spent three weeks in a logging camp, and then resumed his journey home, arriving in Tunnelton in November of that year. For a time it was difficult to readjust himself to the slow routine of the old neighborhood. In the meantime he attended an embalming school at Pittsburgh, where he received a diploma, and on returning to Tunnelton engaged in the undertaking and furniture business March 1, 1904. He has continued in this line ever since, and in addition is a coal operator, being associated with his brother, A. W. Hartman, in the Hartman Brothers Coal Company. He is developing another property near Grafton, known as the Reynolds Coal Company, of which he is the president. In the spring following his return from the Klondike Mr. Hartman married Miss Mary J. Cummings, daughter of George and Jane (Lloyd) Cummings. Her mother was a daughter of John Lloyd, a Welshman. Mrs. Hartman, who was born in Preston County in 1882, is the mother of a son, Ralph Maxwell, born May 31, 1909. Mr. Hartman votes as a republican, is affiliated with the Junior Order United American Mechanics, Daughters of America, Knights of Pythias, Pythian Sisters, the Dokeys, and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner.