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][a] – 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 was a member of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States in 1787. He served as the first governor of New Hampshire and chief justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court of Judicature.[2][3]
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.[4] Bartlett had some education from the town schoolmaster[5] and possibly circuit schools.[6] He learned Latin and Greek, most likely from a relative, Reverend Doctor John Webster.[6] In 1745, Bartlett studied medicine in his hometown under Dr. Nehemiah Ordway, a relative.[7][b][c] He also studied from Ordway's and other physician's medical books.[2][9] After a five year apprenticeship,[9] he moved to Kingston, New Hampshire in 1750.[7][9] He lived with Reverend Joseph Secombe.[6] One year later, he purchased twelve acres for a farm.[7]
On January 15, 1754, he married Mary BartlettofNewton, New Hampshire.[7][9] She was his cousin, the daughter of his uncle, Deacon Joseph Bartlett and Sarah (née Hoyt) Bartlett.[10] The Bartletts had twelve children, eight who lived to adulthood.[5] They were: Mary (1754), Lois (1756), Miriam (1758), Rhoda (1760), Levi (1763), Josiah (1768), Ezra (1770), and Sarah (1773).[11][12][d] All three of his sons and seven of his grandsons would follow him as physicians.[10]
Bartlett was a freemason and encouraged his son Josiah to join.[13][e] Bartlett and Mary remained married until her death on July 14, 1789.[14][15]
In 1750, he moved to Kingston, New Hampshire, in Rockingham County, and began his practice.[9] Kingston at that time was a frontier settlement.[5]
Bartlett actively practiced medicine for 40 years.[5] During that time, he tested both traditional and new treatments for optimal efficacy.[16]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.[5][16] He also realized the benefits of curing fevers with cool liquids,[17] like apple cider, taken at intervals. He tried this when he was quite ill, against his physician's orders, with success.[18] Beginning June 25, 1765, Bartlett and Dr. Amos Gale were partners in a medical practice in Kingston for a period of three years.[8]
Bartlett believed in living life in a way to foster wellness, including exercise, diet, fresh air, and following cues of one's body, like drinking when thirsty and covering up with the chills. He also believed "to keep the mind as Easy and Contented as possible" were "of much more Service than a multiplicity of Medicines".[19]
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.[16] 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.[20]
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.[5]
Bartlett became active in the political affairs of Kingston, and in 1765 he was elected to the colonial assembly.[6][21] Bartlett conducted discussions with Governor Benning Wentworth (1741–1766) and the Provincial Assembly regarding dissension caused by the Stamp Act of 1765 (enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain). He opposed the Townshend Acts of 1767 and 1768 and aligned politically with the patriots, or Whigs.[6] Bartlett was member of the colonial legislature until 1775.[3]
In 1765, he was made a justice of the peace by Governor Benning Wentworth.[8] Two years later, Governor John Wentworth (1767–1775) appointed him justice of the peace. He organized the 7th Regiment of the New Hampshire Milition and was a colonel of the militia. [6]
Wanting independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, Bartlett participated in revolutionary causes beginning in 1774. He joined the Provincial Assembly's Committee of Correspondence and the Committee of Safety in May.[6][21]
That month, his house was burned down, likely by Tories. Bartlett was chosen to represent New Hampshire at the First Continental Congress (September 5 to October 26, 1774), but declined because his house was razed.[6] He moved his family out to the farmhouse and began rebuilding immediately. The Josiah Bartlett House was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971.[22][23]
He was named an "accessory after the fact" for the Capture of Fort William and Mary (December 14, 1774) in New Castle, New Hampshire. Governor Wentworth dismissed him from his positions as a justice of the peace and militia colonel in February 1775.[6]
Bartlett was a member of the Continental Congress in 1775, 1776 and 1778.[3] He 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.
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.[6] He was the second signer of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776).[3] He signed the engrossed copy on August 2, 1776.[6]
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.[citation needed]
In 1777, he declined a return to the Congress. He organized regiments to respond to an anticipated threat from Montreal. He led the troops with supplies to Bennington, New Hampshire to join up with Gen. John Stark's forces. He brought medical supplies that were needed for the Battle of Bennington.[3][6] In 1779, Bartlett was made a colonel in the militia.[6]
Bartlett was reelected to the Continental Congress on March 14, 1778 and returned to Philadelphia by May 21, 1778.[24] He served on the committee that drafted[citation needed] and was a signer of the Articles of Confederation.[3] He withdrew his seat on October 31, 1778 to return to New Hampshire to attend to personal business and to encourage members of the state convention to ratify the Articles of Confederation (the initial Constitution).[10] 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.
Bartlett and Mary wrote letters to one another that provide insight into their lives during the revolution. Pauline Maier in The old revolutionaries : political lives in the age of Samuel Adams states: "In the midst of change, some revolutionaries cultivated continuity. For Josiah and Mary Bartlett, the permanent alterations the Revolution brought to them and their provincial world were grafted upon a larger field of stability. Josiah might help design a national government that would determine the happiness of all future generations, but the seasons would come as always, the drought and worms at most a little earlier, a little later; and even the failure of the Revolution would have been, it seemed, but another of the troubles that marked men's existence and for which Providence would again somehow provide."[25]
He was re-elected to Congress in 1778.
He became chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1778.[3] In 1779, he returned to his role as a judge, serving in the Court of Common Pleas.[16] Then in 1782[16] or 1784, he was appointed justice to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.[3]
Bartlett was a delegate from New Hampshire of the convention that framed the Constitution of the United States in 1787.[3][16] Sometimes serving as chairman, he argued for ratification, which took place on June 21, 1788.[citation needed]
In 1788, Bartlett was made the chief justice of the state supreme court.[3][16] The legislature of the new state of New Hampshire selected him to be a U. S. Senator in 1789, but he declined the office.[3][16] He resigned as chief justice in 1789.[3]
He was governor of New Hampshire from 1790, initially called president, until the new state constitution of 1792 took effect in 1793, when his title was governor. He resigned on January 29, 1794 because of declining health.[3][16] 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.
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, behind the First Universalist Church in Kingston.[3]
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.[26] 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.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Governor of New Hampshire 1790–1794 |
Succeeded by |
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Signatories |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Related |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Display |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International |
|
|---|---|
| National |
|
| People |
|
| Other |
|
