Josiah Bartlett (2 December 1729 – 19 May 1795) was Governor of New Hampshire from 5 June 1790 to 5 June 1794, succeeding John Sullivan and preceding John Taylor Gilman. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party.
Biography[]
Josiah Bartlett was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts in 1729, and he moved to Kingston, New Hampshire in 1750 to open a medical practice. In 1765, he was elected to the colonial assembly, and he became colonel of the Rockingham County militia in 1767. In 1774, he joined the assembly's Committee of Correspondence and was elected to the illegal Provincial Assembly. In 1775, he was selected as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, and, in late 1775 and early 1776, he was the only New Hampshire delegate to attend the Congress. He vehemently supported independence after the American Revolutionary War broke out, and he signed the US Declaration of Independence and served on the committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation. In 1782, he was appointed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and he became its Chief Justice in 1788. In 1788, he was integral in securing New Hampshire's ratification of the US Constitution, and he declined the office of US Senator. However, he served as Governor from 1790 to 1794, serving as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. He died of paralysis in 1795.