Josiah Bartlett

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Josiah Bartlett (born November 21, 1729 in Amesbury , Province of Massachusetts Bay , colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain , now Massachusetts , USA ; † May 19, 1795 in Kingston , New Hampshire , USA) was a British-American doctor and politician , who, as a delegate of the Continental Congress for New Hampshire , signed the United States' Declaration of Independence and is one of the American Founding Fathers . He later served as chairman of the New Hampshire Supreme Court and governor of the state.

biography

Josiah was born the fifth child and fourth son of Stephen and Hannah (Webster) Bartlett. He attended elementary school. At the age of 16 he had learned the basics of the Latin and Greek languages. In 1745 he began studying medicine and worked in the practice of Dr. Ordway in Amesbury. Before he was 21 years old, he moved to Kingston , Rockingham County in 1750 , put up a practice sign and began to work independently.

Kingston was a frontier settlement with a few hundred families at the time. Bartlett was the only doctor in this part of the county, and his practice was doing well. He bought land and added a farm to his possessions.

On January 15, 1754, he married Mary Bartlett of Newton, Massachusetts . She was his cousin, a daughter of his uncle Joseph; she died on July 14, 1789. They had eleven children: Mary (1754), Lois (1756), Miriam (1758), Rhoda (1760), Hannah (who died as a child in 1762), Levi (1763), Josiah ( 1765, died the same year), Josiah (1768), Ezra (1770), Sarah (1773), Hannah (1776, who also died as a child). Three of his sons and five of his grandchildren also became doctors.

Political career

Like many prominent men in small communities, Bartlett became active in Kingston public affairs and was elected to the colonial parliament in 1765. In 1767 he became a colonel in his county's militia and Governor John Wentworth appointed him justice of the peace. When the American independence movement began, his Whig views brought him into opposition to Royal Governor Wentworth.

In 1774 he joined the Correspondence Committee of the Colonial Parliament and began working with the leaders of the independence movement of the 13 colonies . Later that year, when Wentworth dismissed or adjourned the colonial parliament, Bartlett was elected to its independent (and illegal) successor, the provincial parliament. Bartlett also suffered the loss of his home in a fire allegedly started by opposing Tories . He moved his family out to his farmhouse and immediately started rebuilding. When Parliament elected Bartlett and John Pickering as delegates to the Continental Congress , he was forced to decline because he had to stay with his family, but remained active in New Hampshire affairs. As one of the last acts of Governor Wentworth before he was expelled from New Hampshire, he revoked Bartlett's appointment as judge, colonel of the militia and a member of the colonial parliament.

Continental Congress

Bartlett was re-elected as a delegate in 1775 and attended the meeting as well as the 1776 meetings. In fact, he was the only New Hampshire delegate for some time in late 1775 and early 1776. Much of the work of Congress was done in committees. The main ones had a delegate from each state, which meant that Bartlett attended all of them, including those responsible for security, intelligence , armament, the navy, and civil administration. His attention to detail and hard work in the committees made him one of the most influential participants in Congress, although he rarely took part in the debates of the assembled Congress.

Finally, after his standing letters home to Parliament and the New Hampshire Security Committee, William Whipple and Matthew Thornton were added to the Philadelphia delegation . When the question of declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain was officially raised in 1776, Bartlett, representing the northernmost colony, was the first to be asked and he replied in the affirmative. On August 2, 1776, when the delegates signed the formal copy of the Declaration of Independence, he was the second to sign, after John Hancock , President of Congress .

In 1777 he refused to return to Congress, citing exhaustion from previous toil. However, when difficulties arose, he turned to medical knowledge and joined John Stark's forces at the Battle of Bennington in August .

He was re-elected to Congress in 1778 and worked on the committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation . But after the articles were accepted, he returned to New Hampshire to go about his private business. That was his last assignment in federal service because he believed he had left his family alone for far too long. In fact, while he was with Congress in 1776, his wife, Mary, had run the farm, supervised the restoration of their home, cared for the new children, and given birth to Hannah.

Further career

Although he remained in his state after 1778, he returned to his role as judge in 1779, working at the General Court of Appeals. In 1782 he was appointed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court , although he was not a lawyer. Indeed, some contemporary jurists believed that the judiciary was never better than when the Chief Justice knew little about legal history.

In 1788 Bartlett became chairman of the state's Supreme Court. That same year he was a delegate to the New Hampshire Congress for the adoption of the United States Constitution , where he served as chairman for some time. The New Hampshire Legislature elected him US Senator , but he turned it down.

governor

In 1790, Bartlett's lifelong endeavors were honored. It secured official recognition from the New Hampshire Medical Society. He was also elected by an overwhelming majority as New Hampshire's Chief Executive Officer . He served as president in 1791 and 1792. When the new constitution came into force in 1792, he continued to work, now as governor. He resigned in 1794 after four years because of his deteriorating health; he died the following year.

During his tenure, he oversaw the implementation of the new state constitution, the compilation and entry into force of laws and statutes, and the provision of funds for timely settlement of state expenses. He actively promoted agriculture and industry, improving roads and starting projects for building canals.

Medical career

Bartlett practiced as a doctor for 45 years. From today's perspective, that alone is a major achievement. He had no college education and left school at the age of 14. He apprenticed to another doctor and started his practice at the age of 20. But he was willing to reflect on what he was doing and avoided some traditional therapies like bloodletting . Its reputation was formally established in 1754.

The Kingston area experienced a fever and oral rot epidemic called throat distemper around 1735 . It was a serious disease for adults, and mostly fatal for children, especially very young children. When the disease reappeared in 1754, Bartlett simply tried various doses of various drugs available and discovered that cinchona bark suppressed symptoms long enough to allow recovery.

Bartlett lived in a time when medicine was making tremendous advances. His erudition, careful hands, and conscientious work made him an effective and successful doctor. He founded the New Hampshire Medical Society and was its first president. In 1790 he gave the graduation speech at Dartmouth College when his son Ezra graduated. Part of his fame stems from his signing of the US Declaration of Independence and his recent election as President of New Hampshire. But in part it was also a recognition of his medical career. He was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Medicine on the same day that his son received this degree.

Further life

He retired to his home in Kingston and died there on May 19, 1795. He was buried next to his wife Mary in the Prairie Cemetery in Kingston. A bronze statue of Bartlett stands in the central square of Amesbury. His portrait hangs in the House of Parliament in Concord , painted by John Trumbull . The town of Bartlett was named in his honor and the Josiah Bartlett Elementary School bears his name.

Popular culture

The fictional character of US President Josiah Bartlet in the television series The West Wing is also named after him and is portrayed as a direct descendant of Bartlett within the plot.

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personal data
SURNAME Bartlett, Josiah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-American doctor and politician; one of the founding fathers of the USA
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1729
PLACE OF BIRTH Amesbury , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1795
Place of death Kingston , New Hampshire