William Hartley




Location of Name

On the south side of Signature Rock, a small 15'x20' rock just to the southeast of North Gateway Rock. Below the name is the date 1858. The name is in the center of the rock, several inches to the left of the A.C. Wright name.

Condition of Name

The name is still legible. The "H," the "t" and the "e" are double-lined, as is the date "1858." Some later initials "F.H." have been inscribed across part of the name and date.

Biography of William Hartley

In the spring of 1858 William Hartley, a civil engineer and surveyor, was among the thirty-five unmarried men who joined the goldseeking party organized by John Easter in Lawrence, Kansas. The party from Lawrence traveled west along the Santa Fe Trail, arriving at the Garden of the Gods on July 8 and remaining there until 10 August.

Hartley was still with the Lawrence Party during the move north to the Russell Diggings at the mouth of Cherry Creek in September of 1858. Over the next several months he became a leader in establishing townsites to accomodate the expected rush of gold seekers the following spring. His friend T.C. Dickson described the activity:

"Shortly after this a party of us, including William Hartley, who was a surveyor and had his instruments with him, decided to lay out a town on the east side of the Platte River, about five miles from the mouth of Cherry Creek, which we did, and called it 'Montana.' About a week after this Chas. Nichols, Adnah French, John A. Churchill, Frank M. Cobb, William Hartley, W.M. Smith, William McGaa, John S. Smith and myself, nine persons in all, who were interested in the Montana townsite, came to the conclusion that we had made a mistake in laying out a town five miles away from the regular trail...So we went down to the mouth of Cherry Creek, surveyed and laid out the town of St. Charles, consisting of 640 acres lying east of th Platte river and Cherry Creek. This was on the 24th of September, 1858.
After laying out the town of St. Charles, the town company - which included William Hartley - decided to winter over in Lawrence and return the following spring. While they were gone the townsite was jumped by a group from Leavenworth, known as the Larimer Party. The area was re-surveyed and re-named Denver City.

William Hartley and T.C Dickson arrived back in Lawrence on 9 November 1858. Nine days later he wrote a statement about the gold diggings at Cherry Creek, and had it published in the Lawrence Republican of 25 November 1858. Sometime after their return to Lawrence Hartley and Dickson collaborated on a guidebook to the new gold fields. It was advertised in the Missouri Democrat of 13 December 1858 as "A descriptive guide book with tables showing camping places, distance between the same, on the various routes, with a comprehensive and reliable map of the newly discovered gold regions." This was among the first of many guidebooks written for sale to the Fifty-Niners. A copy of it could be obtained by mailing one dollar to William Hartley and Company, St Louis, Missouri.

There is no evidence to suggest that William Hartley ever returned to the Front Range of the Rockies.



Next

Main Page


SOURCES

1- T.C. Dickson, The Trail, Vol.III, No.10, March, 1911.

2- Lawrence Republican, 25 November, 1858.