The Artist F.W. Bartlett II entered the world May 1940 in Brattleboro, Vt. Various undertakings were begun by him, starting with painting at the age of three. Experimentation with a crow quill pen followed later as an early adolescent youth. During the following years he lived within multiple states along the east coast and settled in Pennsylvania, his final home where he succumbed to cancer December 1997.

In 1969,while employed full-time as a writer during the day and attending college in the evening, he sandwiched in his first original drawing of a local coal mine, at Glen Lyon, PA. It took 65 hours to complete the drawing which was supplemented with pencil shading and was a welcome break in his normal routine. By 1972, 12 mines had been sketched and, following a lay-off from his job that year, an interesting career was launched as a full -time artist. A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts was awarded Bartlett in December of 1972 to expand his series on the mines. In March of 1973, an exhibit entitled "When Coal was King" opened in the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology in Washington DC, featuring most of Bartlett's original pen and ink drawings at that time and lasted until November of 1974. After the exhibition he donated prints of each drawing to enter into their archives.

Since then his drawings expanded in many directions earning him countless show awards and invitations to display his work at some of the best art shows east of the Mississippi. With his extensive travel, his interests expanded from the mining industry into railroads, grist mills, aircraft, petroleum, and maritime industries. He even dabbled in Rube Goldbergesque impossible inventions with a humorous touch and an executive coloring book featuring numerous trains.