Bartlett was born in 1835 in Dorset, Vermont,[1] studied under Robert Eberhard Launitz in New York City and subsequently in Paris, Rome, and Perugia.

For 22 years he was an instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's[2] architecture department, and also operated a free art school for poor children.

Bartlett allowed Dallin to live in his studio rent free when his funding ran low and wrote positively of his talents.

The relationship would sour and in 1885 Bartlett would be critical of Dallin's winning first effort in the competition to sculpt Paul Revere.

[3] Bartlett's best known works include The Wounded Drummer Boy of Shiloh, and the Horace Wells Monument (1875) in Bushnell Park, Hartford, Connecticut.