By Frances A. Chiu, Ph.D.
These lines from a children’s song richly capture the infamy that Thomas Paine had fallen into at the time of his death on June 8, 1809 in New Rochelle, New York:
“Poor Tom Paine! There he lies
Nobody laughs and nobody cries
Where he has gone or how he fares
Nobody knows and nobody cares“
Even with the passing of 215 years, Paine is still a relatively unknown figure despite his bestselling pamphlet, Common Sense (1776) which urged Americans to declare independence, and his popular American Crisis papers (1776–1783).
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