January 27, 2002

Find Tom's Bones

Civic leaders of New Rochelle, N.Y., need help in locating the bones of American patriot Thomas Paine. He inspired the American Revolution with his pamphlet "Common Sense" but was denied citizenship and died an outcast because of his God-only religious belief.

The Citizen Paine Restoration Initiative Committee wants to give their most famous townsman an honored burial on the farm confiscated from a British loyalist and given to him by Congress.

Paine was born of a Quaker family at Thetford, England, in 1737. He was apprenticed to pursue his father's trade as a corset-stay maker. However, as a student, Tom was intrigued by philosophy, the burgeoning social consciousness and scientific reasoning of that day.

On the matter of religion, Paine rejected organized churches. He became a convinced "deist" - belief in an omnipotent God who created the universe and thereafter left it to run itself. He asserted that Jesus Christ was an ordinary man without holy attributes.

Paine left home at age 19 for a brief tour as a seaman aboard a privateer ship   - a royally sanctioned pirate - but gave up after one, profitless voyage. He married, but his wife died a year later. He married a second time but was soon legally separated.

He worked at a succession of jobs without success. One of these was as an "excise man" - a collector of taxes on imported cargo. Paine was fired from that post in 1774 for trying to organize a union of customs agents.

Deism at that time was popular with educated men in a movement that became known as the Enlightenment. In the circle of philosophers was Benjamin Franklin, then trade representative at London for the American colonies. He gave Paine a letter of introduction to friends in Philadelphia.

 Paine arrived at the colony in November 1774 and found employment as a writer for Pennsylvania Magazine. He quickly gained recognition for an article condemning slavery and helped organize an abolitionist society.

Common Sense

The colonies were in ferment over "taxation without representation." Paine in Jan. 1776 wrote and published a 47-page pamphlet titled "Common Sense" which persuasively laid out the case for a declaration of independence from England.

The tract was an instant sensation. A half-million copies were sold within a few months - to a population of something over two million in the 13 American colonies. It was the spark that encouraged the colonists to action.

Most Americans today know Tom Paine's words were a catalyst for the War Of Independence but few have read it. The closing paragraphs give us a sense of the intensity of his -- and the colonists' - feeling about the issue:

"Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America.

"The last cord now is broken. The people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which Nature cannot forgive. She would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the continent forgive the murders of Britain.

"The Almighty has implanted to us these unextinguishable feelings, for good and wide purposes. They are the guardians of His image in our hearts, and distinguish us from the herd of common animals.

"The social compact would dissolve and justice be extirpated from the earth -- or have only a casual existence -- were we callous to the touches of affection.

"O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom has been haunted round the globe. England has given her warning to depart.

"O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind."

Thanks by Washington

When war broke out following the Declaration of Independence, Paine joined Gen. George Washington's rag-tag army on the march across New Jersey and into winter quarters at Valley Forge.

There, Paine wrote another valuable treatise - for discouraged soldiers and citizenry. Hunched around a fire, using a drum as desk, Tom began: "These are times that try men's souls." The pamphlet was printed and distributed widely.

Gen. Washington called Paine to his rude headquarters to commend him: "Your presence may remind Congress of your past service to this country and if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions [on your behalf] by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your work."

Paine was appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania state assembly. He gave the first $500 of salary to a business friend - Robert Morris -- with which to start a bank to finance the war. Within six months, Morris had accumulated $1 million and incorporated the Bank of North America, which financed the war thereafter - and bankrupted Morris.

John Adams, who succeeded George Washington as president of the United States, wrote: "Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain."

In appreciation for Paine's work, Congress appointed him secretary to its foreign affairs committee. Upon victory, Congress voted him 3,000 pounds sterling, Pennsylvania gave him 500 pounds sterling and New York gave him the confiscated farm in New Rochelle.

French Revolution

He turned his attention to the science and technology of his day. He returned to England in 1787 to promote a single-arch iron bridge he had invented. The French Revolution stirred his fighting spirit, and he rushed there to take part. A friend succeeded in building the bridge.

Paine supported the revolution with another influential pamphlet, "The Rights of Man." For his support, he was elected to the Convention and given a key to the Bastille which he passed on to President Washington.  

However, Paine opposed the beheading of King Louis XVI.  For this, Citizen Paine was imprisoned for nearly a year. During this time he wrote "The Age of Reason" outlining his deist philosophy.

He was only a day away from losing his own head when James Madison, the new American minister to France and later the fourth president of the United States, secured his release.

Now in failing health, Paine returned to the United States in 1801, expecting a warm welcome because of his services in the American Revolution. Unhappily, his last work, "Age of Reason" had preceded him. Old friends shunned him. Strangers on the street pushed and insulted him.

He took refuge first in his New Rochelle home, then moved to rented quarters in Greenwich, a village adjoining New York City. An application for a pension from Congress was rejected. Friends paid his lodging and physician.

As he lay dying, ministers of all faiths came to try and convert him to Christianity. These men of cloth he dismissed rudely. He asked to be buried in the Quaker Cemetery, but was denied. He died June 8, 1809, at age 72.

A Parisian friend, Madame Marguerite de Bonneville, a refuge from the French Revolution horrors, claimed his body. She, with her son, a few friends and two Negro servants, carted Paine's body to New Rochelle for burial.

As earth was tumbling into his grave, Madame de Bonneville cried out, "Oh! Mr. Paine! My son stands here in testimony of the gratitude of America, and I, for France."

Bones Mystery

A decade later, a former critic of Paine, William Cobbett, dug up Paine's bones and carried them to London. He intended to raise money for a patriotic monument to his old adversary.

There was little interest in the project. Cobbett sold bits of Paine's hair - and fragments of his bones -- in return for contributions.

The British government denied a permit for the memorial, and Cobbett died in 1835. The probate court assigned Paine's remaining bones to a receiver who is said to have buried them in his back yard now forgotten.

A tuft of Paine's hair, positively identified, is preserved at the Thetford Museum. An Australian claims to have Paine's skull with injury marks known to have been incurred by Paine.

A DNA match of the Paine relics may solve the mystery of Patriot Paine's bones, and be returned to the New Rochelle grave where he wanted to be.

Author: Lindsey Williams

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Photos by Lindsey Williams

2 col - death mask

[ Death mask of Thomas Paine cast by his physician at Greenwich Village then a suburb of New York City and presented to the Thetford, England, Museum in early 1830s by William Cobbett. ]

2 col. - statue

[Thetford citizens still consider Thomas Paine a traitor and tarred this gilded statue of him shortly after it was erected in 1976 by American subscriptions. Traces of tar stain are still visible. ]

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