Robert Treat Paine
- katellashisadventure
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Robert Treat Paine was born on March 11, 1731, on School Street in the Beacon Hill Neighborhood of Boston, to Reverend Thomas and Eunice (Treat) Paine. He was the fourth of five children, and his father was a pastor of the Congregational Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts. His paternal family can be traced back through his great-grandmother Rebecca Winslow to William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, and Magna Carta Baron Saire de Quincy. His paternal great-grandfather, Thomas Paine, came from England in 1635 and settled in Yarmouth and Eastham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He was a millwright and prominent in the colony. His father was Thomas Pane of Hernhill, Kent, whose family lived in East Anglia, England. He was also descended, on what is believed to be his maternal side, from Stephen Hopkins, a passenger on the Mayflower (who signed the Mayflower Compact). His maternal grandfather, Robert Treat, was the Governor of Connecticut and founder of Newark, NJ. His maternal great-grandfather was the Reverend Samuel Willard, who was the second minister of the Old South Church and a Harvard graduate.[1]
Paine’s father left the ministry, a year before he was born, and became a merchant. He was successful, but he continued to preach in Weymouth, MA, on occasion. Robert Treat Paine grew up in Boston and attended Boston Latin School, where he finished at the top of his class. At fourteen, he entered Harvard and graduated in 1749. While at Harvard, he lived with the Reverend Nathanial Appleton, who was the college chaplain.
The year he graduates, his father loses his fortune and moves to Nova Scotia, and Paine moves to Lunenburg, Massachusetts, to teach. After teaching for a little while, Paine turns to the sea and makes three voyages to North Carolina, which stopped in Philadelphia, where he becomes acquainted with the Franklin family, among many other influential people. In 1754, he was Captain of the Sunflower and led a whaling expedition off the coast of Greenland. His accounts are among the earliest known accounts of whaling in the United States. He had initially gone to sea for health reasons and, during his travels, visited Spain, England, and the Azores.
In 1755, he gave up the sea and began studying law while continuing to study theology. He first studied with Judge Samuel Willard, who was a relative, while preaching at Shirley, Massachusetts. During this time, Judge Willard was made a Colonel in the militia and took Paine along with him. They returned to Massachusetts, and he resumed his study of law under Benjamin Prat in 1756 and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar the same month his father passed away. His father left serious debts that the family had to contend with. He establishes his practice in Portland, Maine, but moves back to Boston and finally to Taunton in 1761. His practice grows, and he becomes a leading citizen of the town. He was elected the Town Moderator on several occasions between 1761 and 1764.
In 1766, he began courting Sally Cobb, and they married on March 15, 1770. She was the daughter of Thomas and Lydia Cobb. Cobb was an iron manufacturer, tavern keep and sea captain. Her brother, David, would be an aide to General Washington during the Revolution. They built a house in 1771 and lived in Taunton, MA. She was pregnant before their marriage, which was shocking behavior at the time. They would have eight children, and all would live to adulthood. Their first child, Robert Treat Paine, was born in 1770 and passed away in 1798. Their first daughter, Sally, was born in 1772 and died on January 6, 1823. She was followed by Thomas, who was born on December 9, 1773, and passed on November 13, 1811. He changed his name to Robert Treat Paine Jr in 1801 after his older brother Robert had died. He would become a writer and pen the song Adams and Liberty in 1798, which became a patriotic song, but unfortunately, because he married Elizabeth, an actress, he had a falling out with his father. In those days, actors and actresses were shunned by respectable people. The irony is that one of Paine’s indirect descendants is the actor Treat Williams, who starred in Everwood and Heartland. Thomas’s fortunes rose and fell during his lifetime as he was a prolific gambler who drank and ran up high debts. He would die in his parents’ attic. Charles, their fourth child, was born August 10, 1775, and passed away February 10, 1910. He married Sarah Sumner Cushing, and they had at least one child. Henry was born in 1775 or 1777 and died on June 8, 1814. Mary was born in 1780 and died on February 27, 1842. She was married twice, to Deacon Samuel Greele and then to Reverend Elisha Clap. They had a daughter named Marie Antoinette, who was born in 1782, but there is no information on whether she married, had children, or when she died. His last child, Lucretia, was born in 1785 and passed away on August 27, 1823. While all his children lived to adulthood, which was unusual for the time period, at least three of them would precede him in death.
In 1765, the Stamp Act and other unfair taxation measures by the British led Paine to the patriot cause. He would celebrate, with everyone else, the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, and by 1768, he was a delegate from Taunton to the Convention, which met because Governor Hutchinson had dissolved the General Court after the General Court refused to rescind a circular letter to the other Colonies that called for actions in response to the British infringement of their charters. While he was on the side of the patriots and a staunch defender of colonial rights, he opposed any separation from the Mother Country.
When the Boston Massacre occurred, he was the prosecuting attorney at the trial, but he was only able to secure charges against two British soldiers. The rest of the men, who were represented by John Adams, were acquitted. During the trial, Paine brings up the issue of Quartering Troops in citizens’ homes without their consent. This issue would come up again during the Continental Congress sessions.
By 1773, Taunton, MA, had joined the Boston Committee of Correspondence, and Paine was the chairman of a committee that drafted a resolution of grievances. He was very active in local politics and was chosen to represent Taunton in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He was chosen as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. He secured this appointment by preventing his neighbor, Davis Leonard, from attending the meeting in the Massachusetts General Court. Leonard was a loyalist who would have contacted Governor Hutchinson, who would have dissolved the Court.
Upon his arrival at the First Continental Congress, he was very active but was still hesitant to support independence. He signed the Articles of Association on October 20, 1774, and served on a variety of other committees. He was once again chosen to be a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, where he signed the Olive Branch Petition in 1775. Upon King George’s rejection of this petition, Paine was no longer on the fence about independence and would staunchly support it. He was a vocal member of Congress and was nicknamed "Objection-Maker" for opposing measures proposed by others, and he seldom proposed new ideas.
Dr. Rush said, “He had a certain obliquity of understanding which prevented his seeing public objects in the same light in which they were seen by other people.”[2] Paine resented John Adams because of his disrespectful attitude towards him. Adams had described him as “fitful, witty, learned and conceited.”[3] He voted for independence on July 2 and subscribed his name to the engrossed copy on August 2, 1776. He served with Rutledge and Jefferson on a committee that reported the Rules of Conduct of Congress in Debate and for fasting and prayer. On July 6, he wrote to his friend Joseph Palmer:
“The day before yesterday the declaration of American independency was voted by twelve colonies agreeable to the sense of the constituents, and New-York was silent, till their new convention (which sits next week) expressed their assent, of which we have some doubt. Thus the issue is joined; and it is our comfortable reflection, that if by struggling we can avoid the servile subjection which Britain demanded, we remain a free and happy people; but if, through the frowns of Providence, we sink in the struggle, we do but remain the wretched people we should have been without this declaration. Our hearts are full, our hands are full; may God, in whom we trust support us.”[4]
In Congress, Paine served on many committees, including the Committee on Ordnance. He was an advocate for the domestic manufacturing of gunpowder, muskets, and artillery. He wrote articles on the manufacture of saltpeter, which were reprinted in several colonies. His efforts were successful because several government-controlled mills were established to make munitions necessary to conduct the war. He was re-elected in 1777 and 1778, but he chose to stay in Massachusetts, where he continued to be active in politics. He becomes a big opponent of inflation and paper money while serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and works diligently to address the problems. He was part of the 1778 committee that drafted a state constitution, but it was not adopted.
Paine would go on to be the State Attorney General of Massachusetts, where he dealt with the confiscation of Tory property and Shay’s Rebellion. He continues to work on economic matters, which include the depreciation of Continental dollars. In 1781, he moved his family from Taunton to Boston because the commute was becoming tedious. They would live on the corner of Mill and Federal Streets, in a brick mansion with a large garden on land that Paine purchased from Leonard Vassall Borland, a local merchant. Before moving to Boston, he was one of the Founders of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1783, John Adams offered him an Associate Justice position on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which he declined. But in 1790, he would accept the same offer from Governor Hancock. His circuit included traveling to Maine, which was part of Massachusetts at the time. At one point, he was fined for traveling on the Sabbath, a violation of a law he had helped frame. As a judge, he was described as having high moral character and as being harsh with hardened criminals, and tender when the criminal showed some form of repentance. He retired from this position in 1804 due to increasing deafness. He was now 73 years old. His final post was in 1804, as Counselor of Massachusetts.
Not much is known about his retirement, but it is said to have been peaceful. He passed away on May 11, 1814, in Boston, Massachusetts, and is buried in Granary Burying Grounds.
Tidbits He was a Calvinist but left the church to become a Universalist. He was a tall Federalist with a deep voice, a serious man who was blunt and frank. One of his clients was John Singleton Copley, the famous painter. One portrait was done from life in 1802. There is a plaque in Boston that commemorates the site of his last home. A Statue of him is located on Church Street in Taunton, MA, and his personal papers are located at the Massachusetts Historical Society |
[2] Kiernan, Denise, and Joseph D'Agnese, Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of The Men Who Signed The Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: Quirk Book, 2009) 44
[3] Barthelmas, Della Gray. The Signers of The Declaration of Independence: A Biographical and Genealogical Reference (Jefferson, NC, London: McFarland, 2003)
Comments