Josiah Edward Bartlet, known to people close to him as "Jed," was born in the early 1940s in New Hampshire, the elder of two sons. His great-great-great-great grandfather was Dr. Josiah Bartlett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. While his father was a Protestant, his mother was a devout Roman Catholic. Jed was brought up in the Catholic faith and remained Catholic for the rest of his life. As a child, his brother, Jon, locked him in a steamer trunk. He claimed there were actually steamers in the trunk and young Jed remembered being surrounded by seafood.