The Bartlett Brothers

Josiah Bartlett was born in Connecticut before the Revolution, His son, David, was born in Connecticut in 1808. He grew up on a farm and learned the trade of tanner and leather maker. About 1825 David and his father Josiah, moved their families to Hamilton County, Ohio, and engaged in the tanning business. About 1840 David moved to Ripley County, Indiana, because of the availability there of large quantities of oak bark for tanning. He was an enterprising man, operating a large stock farm, tanning leather, making harness and shoes. In 1852, in the hope of restoring his wife to health, he moved to California and for two years carried on a dairy business at Sacramento. In 1858 he brought his family to Atchison County, Missouri, near Tarkio and there he died in 1870. David Bartlett had married Phoebe Ellsworth and their children were the three Bartlett Brothers: Herschel, born 1841, William H. born 1845, David Latham born 1848, and one sister, Lucy A. Bartlett.

Herschel Bartlett, the oldest son, grew up in Indiana and Atchison County, Missouri. He completed his education at College Springs, Iowa, and came to St. Joseph with the family in 1862. He was employed in a dry goods house and then became a distributing clerk in the post office.

William H. Bartlett, born in Indiana and when thirteen years of age, accompanied his family to Atchison County, Missouri, where he attended school and became a teacher himself at the age of sixteen. He accompanied the family to St. Joseph in 1862 and found employment in the recorder's office. In 1864, Herschel and William joined in starting a real estate business in St. Joseph. In 1874 they began negotiating farm mortgage loans for several eastern insurance companies and were the means of bringing large amounts of capital into this agricultural region.

David Latham Bartlett, the third brother, also born in Indiana, growing up in Atchison County, Missouri, came with the family to St.Joseph in 1862 at the age of fourteen. His first employment was the Railway Mail Service, then in a mercantile business, but in 1874, at the age of twenty-four, he joined his two older brothers in their real estate business, and in 1898 The Bartlett Brothers Investment & Loan Company was incorporated. In addition to the mortgage business, the firm was active in the development Ο Joseph city real estate. The brothers gave to the city of St. Joseph twenty acres of land now known as Bartlett Park.

The office of the firm was originally in a basement under the Saxton National Bank on the east side of Fourth Street just north of Francis, but in 1904 the large building at Ninth and Frederick Avenue was built. In the same year, the Bartlett Trust Company was organized to carry on a general banking business. In 1916 the Trust Company built the triangular white building at Eighth and Frederick Avenue adjoining the 1904 structure. This building was variouslу known as "The Flatiron Building” and "The Howitt Building”. It was demolished in 1973.

Herschel Bartlett in 1883 married Emily P. Nye. They had one son, Philip C. K. Bartlett, who graduated from Yale in 1908 and was then associated with the loan business. Herschel's home at 537 North Eighth Street was built about 1890. He died there November 11, 1923.

William H. Bartlett was married in 1887 to Euphemia H. Nimmo, daughter of a Canadian banker. They had two children, William and Margaret B. who married J. Barrow Motter and later Forrest C. Campbell. Mr. Bartlett was a man of great determination and persistent energy. By strict attention to business and his unswerving standard of business ethics he lived to see his firm become a leading institution. He was a man of acute perceptions, a great reader, and a competent judge of men and affairs. He inspired all with who came in contact with supreme faith in his judgment and confidence in his integrity. He lived at 804 Hall Street and died there on September 19, 1904.

David Latham Bartlett was married to Grace Graves and had one son, Latham Herschel Bartlett, who died at an early age. David L. died November 26, 1904.

The business established by the original three Bartlett Brothers grew to such a point that they brought into it two of their nephews Albert L. Bartlett and David L. Bartlett. These were the sons of Josiah Comstock Bartlett, a pioneer physician in the state of Kansas. His son Albert was born March 11, 1852, at Industry, Ohio, now a part of the city of Cincinnati. Four years later the family moved to Big Springs, Kansas, and a few years later to Topeka. David L. Bartlett was born April 4, 1859, at Big Springs, Kansas. In 1860 Bartlett, father of Albert and David, was elected a member of the first state legislature in Kansas. He died in 1862 when Albert was ten and David was three. Their mother remarried. Their grandfather David Bartlett, sent Albert to school in College Springs, Iowa, and in 1869, at the age of seventeen, Albert came to St. Joseph and secured employment from Probate Judge Pettigrew. He soon became a deputy. Albert later joined the American Express organization and became general agent for Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska. When David became fifteen, in 1874, he came to St. Joseph to make his home with his brother Albert. The next year he secured an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and spent two years there. In 1877 David returned to St. Joseph and went to work for his Uncle’s Herschel, William, and Latham. In 1882 Albert joined the business.

Albert L. Bartlett was married in 1915 to Miss Mae Yonker. Their daughter, Hannah, is now married to Jacob M. Ford II, chairman of the board of the First National Bank of St. Joseph.

David L. Bartlett was married in 1879 to Miss Luna Pilkenton of Belleview, Kansas. They had two sons and two daughters: Walter C. Bartlett who was married to Miss Mae Noyes Norman; Albert L. Bartlett, Jr., who was married to Miss Louise Waggener of Atchison, Kansas; Maude who married A. V. Hooper of Seattle; and Mabel who married Hal Y. Lemon. Mrs. Luna P. Bartlett died in 1890 and D. L. Bartlett married Miss Lillie Gunn, daughter of Dr. Robert Gunn and sister of Mrs. Alvah P. Clayton. They had two children: a son, Jerome Bartlett, of Kansas City; and a daughter, Lillian, who married John M. Studebaker III of South Bend, Indiana.

The business was most successful. Albert was head of the Bartlett Brothers Land & Loan Company, while David was president of the Bartlett Trust Company. The World War of 1914-1918 brought about such an increase in demand for agricultural products that there was a great inflation in the values of farmland. When the War was over, the ensuing deflation of land values brought pressure upon the Bartlett Trust Company, which closed at the end of 1926. All depositors were paid in full.

David L. Bartlett died soon after the closing of the Trust Company on February 24, 1927, at the age of sixty-eight. Albert died at his home at 2909 Lovers' Lane on May 9, 1942, at the age of ninety.

The business of the Bartlett Mortgage Company was carried on by the two sons of David, Walter C. Bartlett and Albert L. Bartlett, Jr., until it was sold to the American National Bank of St. Joseph in 1966.