Josiah Bartlett was a 46 years old physician when he signed the Declaration of Independence. A father of twelve children, Bartlett passed at the age of 65 in 1795.
The Bartlett family of Massachusetts traces its roots to William the Conqueror. The family’s records in Stopham show that Brian, a knight (described in ancient sources as Guido de Brionne), and his Esquire, Adam Barttelot, sailed over from the Liseux district of Normandy with William the Conqueror. They fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and both are listed on the Battle Abbey Roll of participants. After the Conquest Sir Brian assumed the name of Brian de Stopham and both he and Adam Barttelot received grants of land in Sussex that became the village of Stopham. These lands had formerly been owned by a Saxon family by the name of Ford. The name “Berthelot”, thought to be a variant of Barttelot, is still current in Normandy.
There is speculation that Adam Barttelot was a 7th generation descendant of Prince Berthelot, a nephew of Charlemagne. On the Battle Abbey Role he is named “Berteulay”. Afterwards it sometimes occurs as “Adam de Bertuilay” and “Adam de Bartelot.”
In the early 14th century Barttelot family members fought under King Edward III in his victories over the French at Crecy in 1348 and at Poitiers in 1356.
In the late 14th century John Barttelot, the ninth generation in the Barttelot line, married the daughter and heiress of the Stophams and came into sole possession of the Stopham and Barttelot properties. He captured the castle of Fontenay in France for which Edward the Black Prince gave him a castle for his crest. He was appointed Lord of the Manor and Patron of the Rectory, M.P. for the Cinque Ports in 1392, and became treasurer of the Earl of Arundel and executor of his will in 1415.
John Barttelot’s son, also named John, fought in the Battle of Agincourt on October 25, 1415, and represented Sussex in the Parliament of 1434.
In the eleventh generation of Barttelots the lineage identifies an Edmund Barttelot of Stopham and Ernly who died in 1591, three years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. While this English connection to the American Bartlett families is contested by some, the evidence seems clear. Professor Bartlett learned on his visit that two of Edmund’s four sons in the English Barttelot records have the same names as the two men—John and Richard—who settled in Newbury, Massachusetts. He learned that these two sons “sold back” their lands to the then heir of the Stopham estates and thereby had “the pecuniary means” to come to America. A third son, Thomas, has the same name in the Stopham records as the Thomas who settled in Watertown at about the same time.
John Bartlett and Richard Bartlett, Josiah Bartlett’s great-great-grandfather, came to Newbury in the ship “Mary and John” in 1634, and settled in Newbury in 1635 where Richard worked as a shoemaker. Richard was an elder in the church, and brought the Breeches Bible with him inscribed with the birth dates of his family members.
Josiah Bartlett, the youngest of seven children, where his parents ran a farm called “The Lion’s Mouth,” was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts, on November 21, 1729. Josiah’s father was also a shoemaker. When Josiah was young he started to study Latin, Greek, and mathematics. Bartlett was extremely bright, and was well adversed in his schooling from a young age. When he was 17, he started to study medicine and became a local doctor’s assistant at the same time. By the age of 21, Josiah Bartlett moved to Rockingham County, New Hampshire, and started his own private practice, beginning his career in 1750. Four years later, Bartlett married his first cousin, Mary, who already shared his surname; together they had 11 children. All of the couple’s surviving sons and grandsons became physicians like Josiah.
By 1765, Bartlett had become active in colonial politics, serving in the New Hampshire legislature from 1765 to 1775, when he became a member of the soon-to-be revolutionary Continental Congress. He was elected a member of the Colonial Legislature. He was noted as a principled legislator, not susceptible to pressure from the Royal Governor, and as an active advocate against British oppression. He was a member of a Committee of Safety, and served as commander of a militia regiment in 1775. In that year he was also elected to represent New Hampshire in the Continental Congress. As a matter of fact, for a few month Josiah was the only New Hampshire delegate. Finally, after Bartlett had pushed rather hard for help, William Whipple and Matthew Thornton were also sent on behalf of New Hampshire.He voted for independence, and was the first to sign the Declaration, after John Hancock. He continued to serve in 1777 and participated in the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.
In 1789, Bartlett both declined election as a member of the United States Senate and stepped down from his post as the chief justice of New Hampshire’s Supreme Court. The following year he was elected president of the state of New Hampshire. A subsequent convention, of which he was a member, changed his title to governor; he continued to serve in that role until 1794. He later filled the offices of Judge of Common Pleas and joined the federal Constitutional Convention in 1787.
He died May 19, 1795. Over 200 years later, writer Aaron Sorkin resurrected the name Josiah Bartlet [sic] as a former New Hampshire governor and current Democratic president of the United States, played by Martin Sheen, in an award-winning television series, The West Wing.
Resources:
“Josiah Bartlett,” Find a Grave
“Josiah Bartlett,” Revolutionary War
“Josiah Bartlett,” The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence
“Josiah Bartlett,” This Day in History
“Josiah Bartlett,” U. S. History
“Josiah Bartlett,” Wikipedia
He rose to prominence in Delaware and served in the militia during the French and Indian War. After the war he served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
John Adams described Rodney as “…the oddest looking man in the world; he is tall, thin and slender as a reed, pale; his face is not bigger than a large apple, yet there is sense and fire, spirit, wit and humor in this countenance.” It was not an appearance to quicken the heart of a woman, however, and it is said that Rodney remained a bachelor because Molly Vining, the woman he loved, married a rector — and soon after died. 
His political engagement began in his interest in the law. He wrote and organized against a poll-tax originated by the royal governor just prior to the outbreak of hostilities. He was a local leader in the patriot movement in the late 1770s.
Charles Wilson Peale’s famous portrait of William Paca, painted in 1772, says much about the man. With arm akimbo, he is very much the self-assured diplomat, lawyer, planter, and patriot. An extremely attractive, tall, yet large, man, he exudes the charm, fashionable demeanor, and educated manner for which he was known. With a bust of Cicero beside him and his Annapolis garden and summerhouse in the background, Paca fills the seven and a half foot canvas with the presence and confidence that would help win independence for the colonies. Many years later, Peale described his famous commission in these words: “A handsome man, more than six feet high, of portly appearance, being well educated and accustomed to the best company, [Paca] was graceful in his movements and complaisant to everyone; in short, his manners were of the first polish. In the early period when the people’s eyes first became opened to their rights,[he] made the first stand for the Independence of the People.”
The relationship between Lee and his oldest brother steadily worsened over the next few years. In 1754 Lee and his siblings brought suit against Philip Lee for not immediately dividing Thomas Lee’s estate according to his will. The lawsuit failed—Philip Lee had wanted to settle his father’s debts before dividing up his property—but Francis Lee and his younger siblings did successfully petition the court to have their cousin Henry Lee appointed as their guardian. When the familial discord threatened to undermine the Lees’ social and political position in colonial Virginia, Francis Lee set aside his differences with his oldest brother and focused on restoring the family’s rank in the colony. Although Lee’s relationship with his oldest brother remained strained, he developed a close bond with his other siblings, brothers Thomas Ludwell Lee, Richard Henry Lee, William Lee, and Arthur Lee, and sisters Hannah Lee and Alice Lee. When Philip Lee finally gave Frank Lee the land he had inherited in far-off Loudoun County, he eagerly took up residence there and was soon called to public service.
In 1769, Lee married Rebecca Tayloe, the sixteen-year-old daughter of John Tayloe, of Mount Airy. Frank was in his thirties at the time. Rebecca Tayloe was one of the eight daughters of John Tayloe II. In providing his blessing, Rebecca’s father made a wedding gift to the couple of a plantation of 1,000 acres. Frank and Rebecca moved to Richmond County. He soon began overseeing the construction of a new residence, Menokin. That same year, residents of Richmond County elected him to the Virginia House of Burgesses; once again, he maintained an inactive role and attended sessions sporadically. He also served the county as a justice of the peace from 1770 until the collapse of Virginia’s colonial government in 1774, and, for a brief time in 1771, was justice of the peace for both Richmond and Loudoun counties.
He became a close associate of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, though he preferred library discussions and back-room strategy to the limelight of public debate. Frank’s contributions to the formation of the American Republic, though subtle and often overlooked, were nonetheless critical. His staid countenance offered stability to the sometimes fractious debate among the delegates and, importantly, he modulated the fiery and sometimes divisive speech of his brother, Richard Henry. “He was,” as his youngest brother Arthur attested, “calmness and philosophy itself.”
