1848
William Hartwell opens the first chapel on Mercer Street.
Five Generations · New Castle, PA
Five generations of caring for the families of New Castle.
Since 1848
A Brief History
One family. One chapel. Five generations.
1882
The current building, on Highland and Main, is dedicated.
1925
Hartwell & Sons becomes an NFDA charter member.
1962
The chapel adds the east wing; veterans services begin.
1998
Margaret Hartwell-Brennan, 5th generation, takes the family seat.
2024
The chapel celebrates 176 years of continuous family ownership.
This Week's Services
Honoring those we serve.
Visitations, services, and celebrations of life this week. Live-streamed where families have requested it.
Our Family
The same family. The same chapel. The same care.
William Hartwell
Founder · 1848
The first Hartwell to set down roots in New Castle was William, a cabinetmaker by trade who answered the call when a neighboring family lost three children in the cholera season of 1848. He built their caskets in his shop on Mercer Street and laid them in the ground himself.
Within a year he had set aside the cabinet work entirely. The shop became the chapel. The neighborhood became the parish. The promise — that the family who buried your dead would still be here when their grandchildren needed them — has held for one hundred and seventy-six years.
James Hartwell II
Director · 4th Generation
James grew up in the apartment above the chapel. He served four years in the Pacific, came home in 1946, and apprenticed under his father until 1962, when he took over the firm.
He oversaw the east-wing expansion, instituted the home's veterans-services program, and was awarded NFDA's Pursuit of Excellence in 1989. He retired in 1998 and turned the chapel over to his daughter. He still answers the phone on Sunday afternoons.
Margaret Hartwell-Brennan
Director · 5th Generation
Margaret grew up listening at the kitchen door. She earned her funeral director's license at twenty-three and joined her father at the chapel the same week. She has served the families of New Castle for twenty-six years.
Under her direction the home has expanded its grief-support programs, its work with the parish-based pre-need ministries, and the partnerships with local hospice. Her son Henry, sixth generation, begins his apprenticeship this year.
What We Offer
Service, in the older sense of the word.
Traditional Funeral
A traditional service is a structured grief — visitation, prayer, eulogy, procession, committal — and the structure is the medicine. We arrange the chapel, the music, the ministry, the cemetery, the limousine, the program, the flowers, and the meal that follows. The family arrives. The family is held. The family is sent home.
Read more →Cremation Services
For families who choose cremation, we offer the same care, the same chapel, the same program of remembrance — only the disposition changes. Our crematory has operated on the premises since 1974. You will know who handled the cremation, where it took place, and when. The certificate comes from our hand to yours.
Read more →Memorial Services
Sometimes the service does not come in the days after the death. The memorial — held weeks or months later, sometimes at a cemetery, a garden, a home, a chapel of the family's choosing — gives the grief a different shape. We attend the planning, the program, the readings, the music, and the gathering with the same care we would bring to a funeral the day after.
Read more →Pre-Planning
Choosing the readings, the music, the casket, the burial plot, the disposition of the estate — choosing while you can — is a gift to the people who will one day be left to choose for you. We sit with families at the kitchen table or in the parlor of the chapel, and we walk through what the day might look like. There is no obligation. There is no cost. There is, however, a great deal of relief.
Read more →Plan Ahead
The conversation worth having before it has to be had.
Most of the families we serve have planned ahead — even the ones who are sure they haven't. They left a note about the music. They told their daughter, once, what kind of casket. They mentioned the cemetery in passing.
A pre-planning conversation gathers those scraps into a record, and adds the parts no one ever thinks to mention. We will come to your home, if you'd like. We bring the form, and we bring the time. There is no charge, and there is no obligation.
↓ Download our planning guide [PDF]We brought my mother to Hartwell because my grandmother was buried from Hartwell, and her mother before her. There is a way that some places hold a grief the way a chapel holds a song.
The Donnelly Family · April 2026
Where We Serve
On the corner of Highland and Main, since 1882.
123 Main StreetNew Castle, Pennsylvania 16101