Josiah Bartlett

Biography

Josiah Bartlett was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts, on November 21, 1729, the youngest child of Stephen and Hannah Webster Bartlett. He attended common school and by the age of sixteen, began the study of medicine while working in the office of a doctor in Amesbury. Before his 21st birthday, he moved to the small frontier town of Kingston, New Hampshire where he hung out his shingle and began his own medical practice. He arrived there with a small wardrobe, about $30, a horse, saddle, bridle, saddlebags, a little medicine, and a pocket case of surgeon’s instruments. He also had equipment for pulling teeth. Although he did not have any formal credentials as a doctor, the town was eager to welcome him. As Kingston had no other doctor, anyone would have been welcomed who could stitch a wound, set a bone, and treat a fever.

But credentialed or not, Bartlett would prove his worth when, several years after his arrival and his marriage to his first cousin Mary Bartlett, an outbreak of diphtheria killed 114 residents of Kingston. The standard treatment for diphtheria at the time was bleeding the patient and starvation which was usually not effective in saving lives. Bartlett chose a different approach, prescribing quinine and applying cool liquids to control the fever. He saved many patients, including his own children, and his reputation for experimentation spread.

Now a landowner as well as a doctor, and a married man with a growing family, Barlett took his place as a prominent figure in the community. By 1757 he had followed the course of many prosperous and prominent men of his day: he entered the political sphere. He began his political career as a town selectman; by 1765, he had been elected to the New Hampshire Provincial Assembly. Two years later, the Governor appointed him a justice of the peace. But as Parliament increased its plans to tax and to regulate the colonies, Bartlett’s critique of the British government and of its representative, the Royal Governor of New Hampshire, grew. By 1774, Bartlett had thrown his support to the growing resistance, working with like-minded men of other colonies through New Hampshire’s Committee of Correspondence.

In 1774 the Governor dismissed New Hampshire’s Assembly. In response, the opponents of British rule re-assembled as an illegal Provincial Assembly. Josiah Barlett was a member of this revolutionary group. Local supporters of the Crown responded by burning his house down. Undaunted, he began to rebuild immediately. In 1775, the departing Governor revoked Bartlett’s commissions as justice of the peace, colonel of the militia, and assemblyman, but by that time, these titles meant little to Bartlett.

In 1775, Josiah Bartlett was selected as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. For a brief period, he was New Hampshire’s sole representative and so he was asked to serve on all the most important congressional committees. His diligence and attention to details made him an influential member despite the fact that he seldom spoke up during debates. Eventually, New Hampshire’s William Whipple and Matthew Thornton joined Bartlett at the Congress. As the northernmost colony, New Hampshire was the first on the roll call vote for independence. It was Bartlett who gave the first “aye” to separation from Britain. It was said that he “made the rafters shake with the loudness of his approval.” He was the second to sign the Declaration itself, just below John Hancock’s large and bold signature. To Bartlett, the Declaration was “the greatest state paper ever conceived by the mind of man.”

As the war began in earnest, Bartlett focused on his medical rather than his political skills. He was with the American forces at the Battle of Bennington in August of 1777, tending to the sick and wounded. But by 1778 he was back in Congress where he served on the committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation. After the Articles were adopted, he returned to New Hampshire, and in 1782, he was appointed to the state Supreme Court. His success on the bench led to his appointment in 1788 as the Chief Justice of New Hampshire’s Supreme Court.

Just as he was a doctor without a medical degree, he was now a judge without a law degree. But in 1790, one of these missing degrees was provided. That year Josiah Bartlett delivered the commencement address at Dartmouth College. His own son, Ezra, was among the graduates of the college. But Dartmouth chose to also confer an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree on Josiah.

In 1788, Dr. Josiah Bartlett returned to the political arena. He attended his state’s ratifying convention as an avid supporter of the Constitution. In 1790, he accepted the position of chief executive of New Hampshire, a title that subsequently became Governor in 1792 when the state adopted a new constitution. He served until 1794 when poor health prompted his resignation. He sent a message to the Legislature, explaining that “I now find myself so far advanced in life that it will be expedient for me, at the close of the session, to retire from the cares and fatigues of public business to the repose of a private life.” He ended his resignation by offering his “best wishes for the future peace and prosperity” of New Hampshire. He died of paralysis the following year at the age of 65.