Robert Treat Paine - MA Signer of the Declaration of Independence

Robert Treat Paine was descended from William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great and Magna Carta Baron Saire de Quincy.

He was born in 1731 and died in 1814. He attended Boston Latin School and went to Harvard. He became a teacher initially and then went to see before returning and taking up the study of law. Once he is admitted to the bar, he establishes his practice in Maine but then moves back to Boston.

He marries Sally Cobb, and they have eight children who would all live to adulthood.

Paine gets involved in politics when the Stamp Act is passed and was the prosecuting attorney during the Boston Massacre Trial. He joins the MA Committee of Correspondence and is elected to the First Continental Congress and then the Second Continental Congress. He is an active and vocal member of both Congresses.

After the war, he would go on to be the State Attorney General of Massachusetts and then Associate Justice for the MA State Supreme Court. He retires from politics and public service because of deafness and his last political post would be as Counselor of Massachusetts.

Fun Fact - He had been a Calvinist but left the church to become a Universalist. One of his descendants was the actor Treat Williams who starred in Everwood prior to his death in 2023.