Personal Life
Josiah Bartlett was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts, to Stephen and Hannah-Mary (Webster) Bartlett. His father Stephen was the son of Richard and Hannah (Emery) Bartlett. He was their fifth child and fourth son. By age 17, he had built a foundation in Latin and learned some Greek. He also began the study of medicine, working in the office of Dr. Ordway of Amesbury at the same time. Before Bartlett turned 21, in 1750, he moved to Kingston, New Hampshire, in Rockingham County, and began his practice.
Kingston at that time was a frontier settlement of only a few hundred families, and Bartlett was the only doctor in that part of the county at the time. He purchased land and a farm.
On January 15, 1754, he married Mary Bartlett (according to genealogy records stored in the Harvard College Library, he married Hannah Webster) of Newton, New Hampshire. She was his cousin, the daughter of his uncle, Joseph. They would remain married until her death on July 14, 1789. Over the years they would have 12 children: Mary (1754), Lois (1756), Miriam (1758), Rhoda (1760), Hannah (who died as an infant in 1762), Levi (1763), Migale (1765, died that same year), Jonathan (1768), Ezra (1770), Sarah (1773), Hannah (1776, also died as an infant) and a child that was never registered. All three of his sons and seven of his grandsons would follow him as physicians.
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