The New York Times, July 1, 1923. PAGE NUMBER 117
TOM PAINE’S COUNTRY HOME IN WESTCHESTER
ONE of the most interesting of the many old buildings in Westchester County is the attractive frame house in New Rochelle which was Thomas Paine’s country home and where many pleasant months of his declining years were spent. He died in this city, June 8, 1809, in a wooden house, long since demolished, at 59 Grove Street. On the house now occupying that site, a bronze tablet commemorating Paine’s life and writings recently was erected by the Greenwich Village Historical Society, the first memorial in New York to the author of “Common Sense” and “The Crisis,” which did so much to arouse the colonists during the early days of the Revolution.
The Westchester County Historical Society made a pilgrimage to the country home of Paine and inspected the memorials which are preserved there. The house is owned by the Huguenot Association of New Rochelle and the small plot it occupies was once part of the 277 acre farm granted to Paine by the New York State Legislature in 1784 “in recognition of his distinguished merit and eminent services rendered to the United States in the progress of the late war.”
Dr. Frank Bergen Kelley of the City History Club, one of the speakers at the recent unveiling of the Paine tablet, says that records show the original house on the former Paine farm was burned during his absence in France in 1793. The house now standing was built by Paine several years later. Originally it was about a quarter of a mile west of the present site, removal being necessary when a large tract was cut up into building lots.
In front of the house, on North Avenue, stands the Paine monument, erected by public contributions in 1839. It was repaired and rededicated in 1881 and a bronze bust placed there in 1899. In 1905 the monument was again repaired by the Thomas Paine Association and in that year the Thomas Paine National Museum was opened on the upper floor. On the monument is a medallion head of Paine with these inscriptions from his writing: “The World Is My Country.” “To Do Good Is My Religion.”
The museum contains the largest number of relics, portraits and other memorials of Paine gathered in a single collection. In a room on the ground floor is a small stove, with the inscription: “Presented by Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Paine, author-hero of the Revolution.” His study, in the rear, has a small window below which was once a hole large enough for the insertion of a finger. This hole was made by a bullet on Christmas Eve, 1805, fired by one of the many persons hostile to Paine. The would-be assassin was arrested but there is no evidence, says Dr. Kelley, that Paine made any effort to prosecute him.
A few days after his death in this city, Paine was buried close to his New Rochelle home, west of the present monument and about twenty-five feet south of the southern line of Paine Avenue. In 1819 his friend and admirer, William Cobbett, had the remains carried to England. Financial difficulties caused Cobbett to postpone the funeral exercises he had planned for Paine in his native country and Paine’s bones ultimately came into the possession of the receivers for Cobbett’s affairs. They were finally lost sight of and no authentic record has been found as to what eventually became of them.