The New York Times, May 31, 1908. PAGE NUMBER 9
TO PRESERVE PAINE’S HOUSE.
Huguenot Association Will Restore the Revolutionist’s Old Homestead.
Special to The New York Times.
NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y., May 30. — The Huguenot Association of this city has decided to purchase the old homestead of Thomas Paine, author of the “Age of Reason,” from Charles W. See, present owner of the farm which Congress gave to Paine, and move it to a plot near the Paine monument in North Avenue. It will be fitted up as a museum for the collection of Huguenot and Revolutionary relics.
Paine lived in the old house until within a short time before his death in 1809, and the chair in which he used to sit, his andirons, and fire pot are in the possession of local residents. An attempt was made to assassinate the great Revolutionist while he was sitting at a window, and the mark made by the bullet can still be seen in the wall.
The Huguenot Association prizes the old house because it was one of the first erected by the Huguenots, who fled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and established New Rochelle in 1688. Mr. See was at the point of selling it for kindling wood when the association stepped in and saved it. The plans of the association call for the expenditure of about $10,000.