I keep seeing references to this man on the Internet but can’t find any original sourcing:
“Jeremiah Carlton, laziest man in history, heir to a large fortune at 19 went to bed and stayed there for next 70 yrs”
Is this an urban legend? 
Did Jeremiah Carlton really exist? (at 19 inherited fortune,went to bed and stayed there for 70 yrs)
Snopes.com doesn’t have anything about it, and I suppose it’s possible, assuming someone was bringing them food and water, and you have a reasonably hygienic way of eliminating waste, but unless you were exercising regularly (in bed) you would develop bed soars and your muscles would atrophy. My guess is that it’s not true, or at least it’s not true as you have described it. Someone may have locked themselves in their mansion for 70 years, but even that sounds far fetched…
I believe that Factoid Books’ Big Book of Weirdos has a couple of pages on him, with a bibliography at the end. I can’t check now, though. My copy’s at home.
Like, literally lay in bed 70 years, or just mostly lay there, but also spending some time doing laundry, bathing, using the restroom, checking mail, etc.?
Was he alone? 
If he wasn’t, I can understand. I can.
Florence Nightingale came home from the war, took to her bed, and more or less stayed there for the rest of her life while working to improve the lot of nurses. Around 40-50 years, IIRC.
Don’t know. Every reference to him on the Internet just repeats that single sentence and nothing else. But the book mentioned further up may have more details.
I found this book at the library but unfortunately there wasn’t anything in there about Jeremiah Carlton. But otherwise it is a pretty interesting book.
In the context of the time does “Went to bed” mean stayed in a bed without ever leaving, or could it just mean staying in one’s bedroom in bedclothes?
Not sure. There’s really no additional information that I’ve been able to find.
Okay I found what I was looking for. The story of a British Aristocrat who died at 81 in 1987, having spent the bulk of his life in bed. Only his name wasn’t Jeremiah Carlton. It was Stephen Tennant. I suspect that Brainy History got the name wrong, because otherwise that would mean that there were TWO wealthy aristocrats who spent their lives ion bed, and that would be atrocious. For all we know, maybe there were more of them.
Stephen Tennant was the subject of a biography by Phillip Hoare, which was published by Penguin in 1992. You’d think that Hoare had a pretty cushy job, writing the bio of a man who spent most of his life in bed. But apparently he wasn’t quite as lethargic as rumor (and The Big Book of WEirdos ) makes him out to be:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/03/books/the-man-who-stayed-in-bed.html
That’s probably the guy. Makes you wonder how the story of his life came to be filled with so much myth and misinformation…even getting the name wrong!
Carlton was supposed to have died in 1790.
People may be lazy, but THAT lazy?! I doubt it, people would still want to get and do activities. Even sick and old people get tired and want to go outdoors and do fun activities. This is no doubt a myth. He could have had an endless stream of beautiful women come to his room for sex, still I can not imagine someone staying in bed.
Good points. There could be a metaphorical use for “went to bed” that isn’t as common today. After all, many people today “sleep with” someone without actually falling asleep in a medical sense.
So, “went to bed” could mean someone who literally stayed in his bed, or it could mean someone who didn’t like to leave home or get fully dressed and wandered the halls and grounds in a long nightgown and was thought quite peculiar. If he needed something in town, he would send a servant (after all, he’s rich)!
Further speculation here but…it is that hard to believe a rich guy was agoraphobic? Which is what I take away “from went to bed and stayed there” rather than lazy. No matter if going to bed means literally laying down or just staying at home/in one’s bedroom.
It’s easy to believe a wealthy recluse’s story would mutate into “never left his bed.”