The daily enterprise (Livingston, Mont.), January 18, 1884
In Norwich Bulletin
Thomas Paine, the infidel writer, spent several months at Mystic with his friend Nathan Haley. It was between 1802 and 1809, for Paine’s death occurred at the latter date, and he returned to America in 1802. While here he kept much secluded, rarely showing himself, but was reputed to spend much of his time in his room writing. He boarded with Haley, in the old Haley homestead, on Pistol Point.
Mr. Paine was a member of the National Convention of France and voted with the Girondists, and made a powerful effort to get the King’s sentence of death commuted to exile in America, in which it is well known he failed and incurred the lasting hatred of Robespierre and his terrorists.
Paine was thrown into prison when he wrote “The Age of Reason.” He was discharged and afterward came home. Our local tradition gives the reason why he was not guillotined by Robespierre. The authorities marked on the prison door their victims, and the messengers of the execution, seeing the fatal mark, entered and bore off their victims to the place of blood. But, according to Mr. Paine’s account, the doors opened outwardly, and when his cell door was marked the door was marked on the inside, and when the messengers came along the door was closed and he was passed by, and so he escaped. There is no reason to doubt the story, though it is new. He was over 60 when he resided in Mystic.