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Josiah Bartlett, a New Hampshire physician, showed the true heroism of a patriot in his ceaseless work to advance the Commonwealth of New Hampshire and the United States into independence. Unlike his more vocal compatriots, John Adams and Patrick Henry, Bartlett did not loudly and violently debate on congressional floors, nor did he stand at the head of the Continental Army like George Washington, facing the bullets and bayonets of the British. Josiah Bartlett sacrificed his personal life, his peace of mind and the wife and family whom he left behind countless times to sit on or chair committees, in order to lend his voice to justice and freedom.

Born in Amesbury, Massachusetts to Stephen and Hannah Bartlett in 1729, Josiah began to study medicine under a Dr. Ordway at the age of sixteen. Bartlett’s previous education had been limited, but he had a capable comprehension of Latin and Greek. In 1750, Bartlett completed his studies with Dr. Ordway and moved to Kingston, New Hampshire to begin his own medical practice. In 1752, he was stricken by fever, and seemed likely to die. During his illness he requested a glass of cider from his caregivers, and was at first refused, as they feared how the beverage would affect his illness. Bartlett persisted in his demand and was finally allowed to sip his cider throughout the night. The cider helped relieve his symptoms and led him to a full recovery.

In 1754, he took as his wife his cousin Mary Bartlett, with whom he shared a loving marriage. They had twelve children, eight of whom survived into adulthood. Also in 1754 he effectively treated canker, considered at that time to be an inflammatory disease, which was particularly harmful to children, attacking with the same virulence of the plague. Bartlett, however, treated canker as a putrid disease and successfully tested a radical new treatment of Peruvian bark on his own child, who was suffering with the illness. Bartlett continued to seek and employ new, innovative medical treatments, furthering the science and the art of medicine.

Bartlett was elected to the New Hampshire Provincial Legislature in 1765; in 1767 he became a colonel of the Kingston county militia. The same year, as conflicts began to arise between the colonies and Great Britain, he was appointed as Justice of the Peace by Governor John Wentworth in an attempt to win Bartlett’s support for the crown. Despite Wentworth’s recognition, Bartlett refused to conform to the governor’s policies, joining the Committee of Correspondence of the Provincial Assembly in 1774. Governor Wentworth discharged both the congress and Bartlett from their duties in 1775.

Bartlett was elected to the first Provincial Assembly, formed after the dissolution of the Committee of Correspondence, which in turn, elected him as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. Bartlett refused this appointment, as his home had just been burned, apparently by Tories. Leaving his wife and children to maintain the farm, Bartlett did accept his appointment to the Second Continental Congress, serving as the only representative of New Hampshire for a brief time, despite his pleas, “that delegates may be appointed and sent here as soon as may be as the Representing a Colony is too weighty & important to be left to one man.” Subsequently, Bartlett was a member of most of the committees operating in the congress, such as Safety, Secrecy, Munitions, Marine, and Civil Government.

In one of Mary Bartlett’s many letters to her husband, she prophetically wrote, “I believe this year will decide the fate of America.” Bartlett helped decide that fate. As a delegate of New Hampshire, the northernmost colony, he was the first to answer positively to the vote for independence from Britain. He was the second delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776.

Emotionally drained, Bartlett refused to return to Congress in 1777, but later served the war effort in his medical capacity, furnishing supplies to New Hampshire troops at the Battle of Bennington on August 16, 1777. He returned to Congress for his final term in 1778, to support and help draft the Articles of Confederation.

In 1779, Bartlett returned to his family, but was appointed as a judge in the New Hampshire Court of Common Pleas in the same year; in 1782 he was selected for the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and was later appointed Chief Justice, despite his lack of a law degree, which only made him more judicially discerning in the eyes of contemporary lawyers.

Bartlett again served as a delegate and temporary chairman at New Hampshire’s state convention, where he lobbied to sanction the United States Constitution. Bartlett emerged from the convention having successfully helped ratify the Constitution on June 21, 1788.

After the death of his wife on July 14, 1789, a forlorn Bartlett, due to his advanced age, refused the post of United States Senator, to which he had been elected. Dartmouth College granted Bartlett an honorary medical degree in 1790, and he in turn honored his profession by founding the New Hampshire Medical Society, creating the society’s constitution and by-laws. He later served as its first president. He was also elected president of New Hampshire, until 1792, when the New Hampshire State Constitution changed his official title to governor. In 1794, Bartlett resigned his post, writing “After having served the public for a number of years, to the best of my abilities, in various offices to which I have had the honor to be appointed I think it proper, before your adjournment, to signify to you, and through you to my fellow citizens at large, that I now find myself so far advanced in age, 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, with a grateful sense of the repeated marks of trust and confidence that my fellow citizens have reposed in me, and with my best wishes for the future peace and prosperity of the state.”

The next year, on May 19, a weary and grieved Josiah Bartlett died at the age of sixty-six. He was a man who cared for and nurtured his patients, his New Hampshire and his country. From his earliest days as a doctor, Bartlett sought new ways to advance the common good of his fellow Americans despite great personal sacrifices and risks to himself and his family. He faced the risk of losing his own child, had the Peruvian bark not been an effective treatment for canker. His participation in the stand against Governor Wentworth helped to bring about the Committee of Correspondence of the Provincial Assembly in 1774, and ultimately the Declaration of Independence, but he lost his house in a fire supposedly set by Tories in opposition to his ideals. His encouragement and support brought the young nation the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, but kept him away from his wife and children. Bartlett, who wrote from the Second Continental Congress, “…I have been here almost five months great part of the time without a Colleague;…hope soon to see Delegates here from our Colony and that I may return to my family and with my domestick affairs relax and unbend my fatigues mind,” patriotically represented his country in a most noble way and at great personal cost- influencing and determining the fate of America.