Born October 2, 1823, in Victory, New York, one of ten children of Rev. John Milton Bartlett and Hannah Bartlett. He studied in the local schools, doing well enough that he soon became a teacher himself in the village of Cato, a profession he would practice for ten years. He sustained himself as a farm laborer and teacher, and at the age of fifteen also began to study medicine in the office of a local physician, Dr. Robert Treat Payne.
In Wisconsin
In 1842, Bartlett moved to Wisconsin, working first as a farm laborer in Delavan, then teaching in Racine and working as a retail clerk in a general store, before moving on to East Troy, in Walworth County. He taught school there for some time; then resumed his medical studies by attending lectures at Rush Medical College in Chicago and continuing his medical apprenticeship with a Chicago physician, Dr. N. S. Davis. He then went into medical practice in East Troy.
Legislative service
In 1852, he was elected to the Assembly's third Walworth County district as a Freesoiler, succeeding fellow Freesoiler Joel H. Cooper. He was assigned to the standing committees on engrossed bills, and on medical colleges and medical societies. He was re-elected in 1853, but in the next session he was succeeded by Samuel Pratt. He continued in the practice of medicine. In 1859, he was elected to the Wisconsin Senate as a Republican, succeeding Republican John W. Boyd. In 1861, rather than seek re-election, he joined the Union Army and became a military surgeon in the American Civil War. He was succeeded by fellow Republican Wyman Spooner.
He initially joined the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, for which he was Assistant Surgeon; then moved on to the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry, for which he became chief surgeon. He was married in Syracuse, New York, on January 19, 1864 to Maria Holyoke, who died later that same year. Bartlett was compelled to resign after he became seriously ill in January 1865. He returned to his home, but was crippled by rheumatism to such an extent that he could not practice medicine for some years.
In 1868 he returned to Cato, New York, setting up practice in the nearby village of Meridian. On May 25, 1869 he remarried, to Maria Holyoke, the widow of his first wife's brother. She had two children from her previous marriage, and together they would have one son, John, who would not live past the age of nineteen. Both of them were active in public life.. He died in November 1911, having for some time been the oldest practicing physician in town.
