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Josiah Bartlett: Difference between revisions

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Josiah Bartlett
1st Governor of New Hampshire
In office June 5, 1790 – June 5, 1794
Preceded by	President of New Hampshire
Succeeded by	John Taylor Gilman
Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court of Judicature
In office 1788–1790
Delegate to the Continental Congress from New Hampshire
In office 1778–1778
In office 1775–1776
Personal details
Born	(1729-11-21)November 21, 1729 Amesbury, Province of Massachusetts Bay, British America
Died	May 19, 1795(1795-05-19) (aged 65) Kingston, New Hampshire, U.S.
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Spouse	Mary Bartlett
Children	10, including Josiah Bartlett Jr.
Relatives	Luella J. B. Case (granddaughter)
Signature

Josiah Bartlett (December 2, 1729 [O.S. November 21, 1729] – May 19, 1795) was an American Founding Father,^[1] physician, statesman, a delegate to the Continental Congress for New Hampshire, and a signatory to the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation. He served as the first governor of New Hampshire and chief justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court of Judicature.^[2]

Personal life

Josiah Bartlett, born on November 21, 1729 in Amesbury, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, was the seventh and last child of Hannah (née Webster and Stephen Bartlett, a shoemaker.^[3] Bartlett had some education from the town schoolmaster^[4] and possibly circuit schools.^[5] He learned Latin and Greek, most likely from a relative, Reverend Doctor John Webster.^[5] In 1745, when he was age 17, Bartlett studied medicine in his hometown under Dr. Nehemiah Ordway, a relative.^[6][a][b] He also studied from Ordway's and other physician's medical books.^[2][8] After a five year apprenticeship,^[8] he moved to Kingston, New Hampshire in 1750.^[8][6] He lived with Reverend Joseph Secombe.^[5] One year later, he purchased twelve acres and a farm.^[6]

On January 15, 1754, he married Mary BartlettofNewton, New Hampshire.^[8][6] She was his cousin, the daughter of his uncle, Deacon Joseph Bartlett and Sarah (née Hoyt) Bartlett.^[9] The Bartletts had twelve children, eight who lived to adulthood.^[4] They were: Mary (1754), Lois (1756), Miriam (1758), Rhoda (1760), Levi (1763), Josiah (1768), Ezra (1770), and Sarah (1773).^[10][11][c] All three of his sons and seven of his grandsons would follow him as physicians.^[9]

Bartlett and Mary remained married until her death on July 14, 1789.^[12][13]

Career

Medicine

In 1750, he moved to Kingston, New Hampshire, in Rockingham County, and began his practice.^[8] Kingston at that time was a frontier settlement.^[4]

Bartlett actively practiced medicine for 40 years.^[4] During that time, he tested both traditional and new treatments for optimal efficacy.^[14]Avirulent form a throat distemper or diphtheria, with a fever and canker, spread throughout Kingston in 1754. Bartlett experimented with therapy using several available drugs and empirically discovered that Peruvian bark, also known as quinine, relieved symptoms long enough to allow recovery.^[14][4] He also realized the benefits of curing fevers with cool liquids,^[15] like apple cider, taken at intervals. He tried this when he was quite ill, against his physician's orders, with success.^[16] Beginning June 25, 1765, Bartlett and Dr. Amos Gale were partners in a medical practice in Kingston for a period of three years.^[7]

In 1790, Bartlett secured legislation recognizing the New Hampshire Medical Society. He was also elected chief executive of New Hampshire. He served in 1791 and 1792 as president.^[14] In 1790, he delivered the commencement address at Dartmouth College when his son Ezra graduated. Bartlett was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Medicine the same day his son was awarded the same degree.^[17]

Farming and real estate

While in Kingston, Bartlett grew crops on his twelve acres beginning in 1751. He also made money dealing in lumber and buying and selling real estate.^[4]

Politics

Bartlett became active in the political affairs of Kingston, and in 1765 he was elected to the colonial assembly.^[18] That year, he was made a justice of the peace by Governor Benning Wentworth.^[7] In 1767, he became the colonel of his county's militia, and Governor John Wentworth appointed him justice of the peace. As the Revolution neared, his Whig policies brought him into opposition with Wentworth. Although his lodge is not known, his great-grandson, Levi S. Bartlett, had a letter written by Josiah to his son Ezra saying, "I attended a Mason meeting last night, and as soon as you can I wish you would join the Masons."^[19] In 1774, Bartlett joined the Assembly's committee of correspondence ^[18] and began his work with the revolutionary leaders of the other 12 colonies. Later that year, when Wentworth dismissed, or prorogued, the Assembly, Josiah was elected to its revolutionary (and illegal) successor, the Provincial Assembly.

He also suffered the loss of his home by fire, alleged to have been set by opposition Tories. He moved his family out to the farmhouse and began rebuilding immediately. When the assembly appointed Bartlett and John Pickering as delegates to the Continental Congress, he declined because he wished to attend to his family, but remained active in New Hampshire's affairs. In one of Governor Wentworth's last acts before being expelled from New Hampshire in 1775, he revoked Bartlett's commissions as justice, militia colonel, and assemblyman.

Continental Congress

Bartlett was selected as a delegate again in 1775, and attended that session as well as the meetings in 1776. Indeed, for a time in late 1775 and early 1776, he was the only delegate attending from New Hampshire. Much of the work of the Congress was carried out in committees. The most important of these had a delegate from each state, which meant that Bartlett served on all of them, including those of safety, secrecy, munitions, marine, and civil government.

Eventually, after his continued letters home to the assembly and committee of safety in New Hampshire, William Whipple and Matthew Thornton were added to the delegation in Philadelphia. When the question of declaring independence from Great Britain was officially brought up in 1776, as a representative of the northernmost colony Bartlett was the first to be asked, and he answered in the affirmative. He signed the Declaration of Independence.

In 1777, he declined a return to the Congress, citing fatigue. But when trouble threatened, he used his medical skills and accompanied John Stark's forces to the Battle of Bennington in August. He was re-elected to Congress in 1778 and served on the committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation. But, after the articles were adopted, he returned to New Hampshire to attend to personal business. This was the last of his federal service. While he was at the Congress in 1776, his wife Mary had managed the farm, seen to the completion of rebuilding their house, cared for nine children, and given birth to Hannah.

Later career

Although he remained in the state after 1778, in 1779 he returned to his role as a judge, serving in the Court of Common Pleas.^[2] Then in 1782 he was appointed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. In 1788, Bartlett was made the chief justice of the state supreme court. That same year he was a delegate to the New Hampshire convention for adoption of the U.S. Constitution, serving part of the time as its chairman. He argued for ratification, which took place on June 21, 1788. The legislature of the new state of New Hampshire selected him to be a U. S. Senator, but he declined the office.

When the new state constitution took effect in 1792, he became governor. He resigned in 1794 after four years because of declining health; he died the next year. During his tenure, he oversaw the installation of a new state constitution, compilation of the laws and statutes in force, and provision for the early payment of the state's debt. He actively promoted agriculture and manufacturing, the improvement of roads, and saw the start of projects to build canals.

Death and legacy

Bartlett retired to his home in Kingston and died there on May 19, 1795. The cause of death was paralysis.^[2] He is buried next to his wife Mary in the Plains Cemetery, also at Kingston. Relatives of Bartlett still live in his home; the Josiah Bartlett House was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971.

A bronze statue of Bartlett stands in the town square of Amesbury, Massachusetts. His portrait hangs in the State HouseinConcord, New Hampshire, drawn from an original by John Trumbull. Bartlett, New Hampshire, is named in his honor, along with the Josiah Bartlett Elementary School. Bartlett is featured on a New Hampshire historical marker (number 46) along New Hampshire Route 111 in Kingston.^[20] The Bartlett School in Amesbury, which operated from 1870 until it was closed in 1968, operates as the Bartlett Museum, Inc., a nonprofit museum.

The main character in the NBC drama series The West Wing, President Josiah Bartlet, is a fictional character depicted as a descendant of the Declaration of Independence signatory.

See also

• Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Bartlett, Josiah (1979). The papers of Josiah Bartlett. Hanover, New Hampshire: Published for the New Hampshire Historical Society by the University Press of New England. ISBN 978-0-87451-168-0.
• Barthelmas, Della Gray (1997). The signers of the Declaration of Independence. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-0318-9.
• Goodrich, Charles A. (1841). Lives of the signers to the Declaration of independence. Hartford: R. G. H. Huntington. pp. 131–138.
• Green, Harry Clinton; Green, Mary Wolcott (1912). Pioneer Mothers of America. G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 452.
• Maier, Pauline (1982). The old revolutionaries : political lives in the age of Samuel Adams. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-394-75073-6.

External links

• United States Congress. "Josiah Bartlett (id: B000206)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Biography by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856
• Society of Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence
• Josiah BartlettatFind a Grave
• The Papers of Josiah Bartlett at Dartmouth College Library