Introduction: America 250 Celebration – Melissa Davenport Berry writes about Revolutionary patriot Josiah Bartlett, the second signer of the Declaration of Independence. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Today my subject is Dr. Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795), former New Hampshire governor, member of the Continental Congress, and second signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Josiah was born in the town of Amesbury, Massachusetts, to Stephen Bartlett and Hannah (Webster) Bartlett. Below is a photo of his birth home.

Here is a statue of Josiah Bartlett in Amesbury, unveiled on 4 July 1888.

The well-known author and historian Eva Augusta (Clough) Speare, daughter of Rev. George Wesley Clough and Mary Elvira (Kempton) Clough and wife of Guy Edwin Speare, published some historical narrative in her column “Stories of New Hampshire” entitled “The Patriot Doctor – Josiah Bartlett” in the Manchester Union Leader in 1971.

In this article, Speare noted her age: “96 years young.” The massive preparations for the big 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 were well underway across the country.

In this column, Speare writes:

The chairman of the Bicentennial Commission for the state of New Hampshire, Dr. J. Duane Squires, has been heard to remark that of all of the many patriots, the name of Doctor Josiah Bartlett heads the list of 1776.

While we plan for the commemoration of the Festival of Freedom, a brief story of the career of this signer of the Declaration of Independence should fill a column.

Josiah Bartlett received an excellent inheritance from his English ancestors. His great-grandfather Richard Bartlett arrived in Newbury, Massachusetts in 1636. His son Richard, born in 1648, had two sons, Joseph and Stephen.

Joseph became a doctor in Newton, New Hampshire. Stephen settled in Amesbury, Massachusetts. He married Hannah Webster on December 18, 1712. Four sons were born to this couple, Josiah being the fourth, born on November 21, 1729.

Josiah became a brilliant student. At the age of sixteen he began to study medicine with Dr. Nehemiah Ordway in Amesbury. Dr. Ordway’s mother [Hannah Bartlett] was a sister of Stephen Bartlett, Josiah’s father.

Usually a student required seven years to complete his education, but Josiah became a doctor in five years.

He went to Kingston, New Hampshire, in 1750 at the age of twenty-one and lived in the home of Rev. Thomas Secombe, who possessed a large and valuable library.

In 1754 he married his [first] cousin, Mary, the daughter of his uncle, Joseph Bartlett [and his wife Sarah (Hoyt) Bartlett] of Newton.

[Here is a “Mourning Picture for Josiah Bartlett and Mary Bartlett,” a watercolor painting housed at Historic New England. The inscription reads: “Sacred to the memory of His Excellency JOSIAH BARTLETT. Obit May 1795, AE 65 ys.” Another inscription, on the edge of the tomb, reads: “In memory of MARY, consort of Josiah Bartlett. Obit 14th July 1789, AE 58 ys.”]

Young Dr. Bartlett was willing to experiment. At this time patients who were ill with fever were not given anything to relieve their thirst. When Josiah became ill with a high fever he demanded a quart of cider which he slowly drank throughout the night. In the morning his fever broke.

Another disease known as “The Throat Distemper,” probably dip[h]theria, became epidemic in Kingston. Instead of the usual treatment, Dr. Bartlett used Peruvian Bark with marked success.

His outstanding contribution to medicine in New Hampshire was in 1791 when he wrote the charter for the New Hampshire Medical Society and became its first president. Dartmouth College had already conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine [on him] in 1790.

During his busy practice of his profession, Dr. Bartlett found time to participate in public life. In 1765, the year of the hated Stamp Act, he was elected to the Provincial Assembly.

In 1767, Governor John Wentworth appointed him a Justice of the Peace, then an important office, and later a colonel of militia.

Josiah Bartlett remained on the patriot side as the controversity [sic] increased between the King George III and the colony. He was appointed on the Committee of Correspondence of the Assembly and later a member of the first Provincial Congress that met at Exeter. This Congress elected him to the First Continental Congress but he was obliged to refuse because his home in Kinston was burned by Tories and he was rebuilding the house that stands today in Kingston, for his growing family.

[Below is a photo of Ruth Albert, a seventh-generation descendant of Josiah Bartlett, in her home once occupied by her great-great-great-great grandfather, sitting at his desk beneath his portrait, in Kingston, New Hampshire, 16 July 2014.]

In the summer of 1775 he was elected to the Second Continental Congress. How he traveled to Philadelphia is not on record, whether by coasting schooner or on horseback, a journey of about a week. He was re-elected in 1776 and gave the first vote on July 2 in support of the Declaration of Independence.

Worn out, he declined re-election in 1777. Yet, he joined General John Stark that summer at the Battle of Bennington where he was wounded. In 1778 and 1779 he was back in the Continental Congress and voted for the Articles of Confederation, the first American Constitution.

Below is a photograph taken on 14 April 1969 in Kingston of the Costumed Committee of the First Congregational Church, which includes Josiah Bartlett’s great-great-granddaughter Gertrude Elizabeth (Bartlett) Wilson (1885-1984), born to Dr. Levi Stevens Bartlett and Grace (Sanborn) Bartlett, with her husband Rodney Melledge Wilson, a historian. Gertrude was among the descendants who occupied the Josiah Bartlett House.

In this photo we see (from left to right): Mrs. Richard A. Berry; Leonard F. Sanborn; Rodney M. Wilson and his wife Gertrude Elizabeth (Bartlett) Wilson; Richard A. Berry; and Mrs. Donald M. Chase.

To be continued…

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Note on the header image: AI-created image of Josiah Bartlett. Credit: Melissa Davenport Berry.

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