The Lancaster Historical Society recently acquired a charcoal portrait of a prominent Lancastrian women, Anna Willard Goodhue.Close scrutiny of the portrait revealed that it was "delineated" in 1855 by Alonzo Hartwell.

On Another Lancaster Historical Society note, a planned program into the origins and history of the Boston Post Cane revealed that in 1909, the town of Concord, Mass. presented the cane to Daniel Fletcher Barker, age 91. Daniel was the great-grandson of Joseph and Ruth (Fletcher) Barker, the great-grandson of Daniel and Sarah(4) (Hartwell) Fletcher.

Many thanks to George W. Dewey, Littleton historian and genealogist extroadinaire, for sending me a copy of the 31 December 1899 Turner's Public Spirit which was reprinted on 31 December 1999 in honor of the millenium.It contained the obituary of Mary Maria (Hartwell) Joy, daughter of Jeptha Richardson(6) and Betsey (Boynton) Hartwell, whose death at Groton, on 27 December 1899, is not recorded in the 1956 Hartwell's of America. According to the obituary, "Mrs. Joy was in her accustomed seat at church on Sunday morning, and did not seem to be ill until the evening, when as she grew worse a physician was called and at midnight she was operated on by Dr. Steer[who was married to Mary M.'s sister,Ardelia] of Groton and Dr. Cowles of Ayer, for the relief of an abdominal trouble which otherwise meant immediate and uncertain death. The patient rallied well from the operation and continued in excellent condition untill late last Tuesday evening, when she began to lose ground and died suddenly early Wednesday morning,from a hemmorrage of the lungs caused by heart weakness. The operation was surgically a complete success, and "had the strength of the patient held out she would have recovered." A classic case of the old saying, "the operation was a complete success but the patient died!"An interesting footnote to this story is the fact that Mary Maria's grandson, Richard Stoddard Aldrich married, as his second wife, the celebrated actress, Gertrude Lawrence.

Webmaster Weston Hartwell reports that his brother, Dana, and wife, Linda, are the proud parents of a son, Ryan Carter, born April 24, 2000 at Falls Church, VA.

Do we have any other end-of-the-century babies? (For those of you who would quibble, the new century and the millenium begins on January 1, 2001, and your editor will arm-wrestle anyone who holds a contrary view). Wes also advises that his niece, Meadow Dawn Hartwell, daughter of Bradford and Donna of East Andover, NH., is a 2000 graduate of Proctor Piper Academy in Andover, where she was an honor student and received several awards for academics as well as sports. Meadow will be attending the University of New Hampshire in the fall.

Update on the basketball brethren, Jason and Luke Hartwell of Valley High School in Bingham, ME. Last year we reported that the twins led their team to the State Championship with an undefeated season as freshman.Guess what? this past year they led their team to a State Championship with an undefeated season as sophomores. Valley is the owner of three consecutive State titles, and sports a 63-0 record. Your editor attended the championship game- and they are good. Not to mention that Valley won the tournament sportsmanship award as well. Way to go, guys!