The LuLac Edition #5, 671, May 30th, 2026

 

 

JOSIAH BARTLETT

DOCTOR GOVERNOR, SIGNER

Josiah Bartlett was an American Founding Father, 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 fourth governor of New Hampshire and chief justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court of Judicature, now the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

Bartlett practiced medicine over 40 years. During that time, he promoted wellness practices, including diet, exercise, fresh air, and a contented mind. He fostered using messages from one's body to improve one's health, like drinking when thirsty and covering up when sick with chills. He managed an outbreak of throat distemper, or diphtheria, with Peruvian bark, also known as quinine, with much greater success than traditional treatments. When he was very sick himself, he took cold cider, versus a warm drink, at intervals to break a fever.

As governor, Bartlett worked to ensure the state's success by supporting farming and businesses, improving the state's infrastructure, codifying and enacting laws, adding special judges, and paying off the state's debt. He ran a farm and orchards over his life. His wife Mary Bartlett took on that responsibility when Bartlett was away at the Continental Congress in Pennsylvania. Bartlett and his wife wrote letters to one another that provide insight into the life of a founding father, the trials they experienced and conquered as they fought for a country independent from British rule, and their strength in creating a stable life for themselves and their twelve children, eight of whom survived into adulthood.

Bartlett was a member of the Continental Congress in 1775, 1776 and 1778. He was selected as a delegate in 1775, and attended the Second Session of the Continental Congress where he sat on the civil government, secrecy, safety, marine, and munitions Committees.

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][30][31] He was the second signer of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776). He signed the engrossed copy on August 2, 1776.

After asking for relief, a couple of men from New Hampshire joined the delegation and that allowed Bartlett to return to New Hampshire[ in 1777. Bartlett 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 (August 16, 1777).[3][6] In 1779, Bartlett was made a colonel in the militia.

Bartlett was reelected to the Continental Congress on March 14, 1778, and returned to Pennsylvania by May 21, 1778. He served on the committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation and he signed the instrument. Bartlett withdrew his seat on October 31, 1778, to return to New Hampshire to attend to personal business.

While he was away from home, his wife Mary, pregnant part of that time, had managed the planting and harvesting of crops, cared for their large family, and oversaw the servants' work.

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."

After the war, Bartlett stayed in public service in the early 1790s as Governor, then called Chief Executive Bartlett retired to his home in Kingston and died there on May 19, 1795. The cause of death was paralysis.He is buried next to his wife Mary in the Plains Cemetery, behind the First Universalist Church in Kingston. Seven-inch medallions located at Bartlett and his wife's graves were awarded by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution.

The 1888 poem "One of the Signers" was written by John Greenleaf Whittier to honor Bartlett.

The main character in the 1999 to 2006 NBC drama series The West Wing, President Josiah Bartlet, is a fictional character depicted as a descendant of the Declaration of Independence signatory.  (wikipedia, NBC, LuLac)