The Globe-republican (Dodge City, Kan.), June 5, 1902
New York Tribune
In the suburbs of New Rochelle, facing North street on the east, stands a granite obelisk, inclosed by a stone fence and overshadowed by trees. It is the monument erected in 1839 in memory of Thomas Paine, the author of “The Rights of Man,” “Common Sense” and “The Age of Reason.”
The ideas expressed in his “Age of Reason” raised a storm of popular indignation against him, and when on his return to America he took up his residence among the descendants of the stern Huguenots of New Rochelle they treated him as an outlaw.
Indeed, he appears to have enjoyed little comfort in his country home. He had lost his wife the year following his marriage to her, and had separated from a second by mutual consent. He afterward had as a companion a Mme. de Bonneville, a Frenchwoman, whose husband had been ruined in England by publishing “The Rights of Man.” With her two sons, she accompanied Paine to America and took up her abode with him on his farm.
Here they lived a life of the strictest seclusion; for, although Paine was occupied in a variety of active pursuits, his attacks upon religion had greatly narrowed his circle of acquaintances and rendered him an object of aversion to his neighbors. Under the leadership of the clergy, they instituted a crusade against him with the avowed object of driving him from town.
His last days were spent in his city house, No. 203 Bleecker street, New York. It was a melancholy ending to a brilliant and active career. Suffering from a complication of disorders brought on by his habitual intemperance, he dragged out the last hours of his life propped up in a chair by a window, poring over the pages of a book and drinking at frequent intervals from a bottle of brandy that stood on a table at his elbow. It is said that as death approached, the noise in busy Bleecker street caused him excruciating agony, and it was found necessary to remove him to a house in Grove street, where he breathed his last on June 8, 1809.
Paine had been born among Quakers in England, so permission was asked to bury his body in the cemetery of the Society of Friends. This was refused on account of his deistical writings, and it was found necessary to seek elsewhere for a place of burial. At last permission was obtained to bury the body in the graveyard of Trinity Episcopal church, New Rochelle, and the vestrymen ordered a grave to be prepared for its reception. The funeral procession started from New York and proceeded along the old Boston Post Road, and, as it passed by several churches along the route, was greeted with demonstrations of intolerance that it is difficult for the present generation to understand. The clergymen, seeing the procession coming, ordered a vigorous ringing of the church bells to indicate their joy in the great deist’s death.
On arriving at New Rochelle the procession went to the little cemetery of Trinity Church, where the gravediggers were awaiting its arrival by the side of the grave they had prepared. The coffin was lifted from the hearse and lowered into the excavation; but, as the gravediggers were in the act of covering it with earth the Rev. Mr. Bayard, the rector, came running to the spot in great excitement and ordered them to stop.
Paine’s friends then remembered that in his will he had reserved for himself twenty square feet on his farm as a place of burial; but, unfortunately, he had omitted to name a location. They proceeded to the farm to carry out his last wish, but Nehemiah Purdy, who had acquired possession, refused to allow them on the premises. In this dilemma they were obliged to bury Paine’s body in the right of way to his farm.
The present monument is supposed to mark the spot where the body was buried, but those who raised the shaft were in error as to the exact location. About thirty feet south of it stands a flourishing hickory tree, and near it are the stumps of two locust posts. Years ago, the father of Henry M. Lester, of New Rochelle, placed these posts, with two others that have long since rotted away, at the four corners of Paine’s grave, and subsequently the hickory tree sprouted from the mound.
Several years after its burial the corpse was taken from its grave by William Cobbett, the celebrated political writer, who at the time was an exile from England, on account of an attack he had made upon the British government. Cobbett was one of Paine’s most ardent admirers. He regarded him as one of the greatest of English writers. So, on coming an exile to America, he made a pilgrimage to Paine’s grave, to show the deep veneration in which he held his dead friend. On finding that the body of his idol lay in a neglected wayside grave, without a stone to mark its location, he was indignant, and resolved to take it away and give it honorable burial elsewhere.
For this purpose he engaged the services of two negroes, and, having sworn them to secrecy, awaited a favorable opportunity to put his project in execution. Selecting a dark, cloudy night, he hired a team and wagon, and, accompanied by the negroes, started out from New York. They reached Paine’s grave shortly before midnight and disinterred the body.
As they were in the act of lifting the coffin into the wagon, Andrew Contant of New Rochelle, a former friend of Paine’s, happened to drive by, and, noticing the glimmer of lanterns by the roadside, stopped his horse. He saw the shadowy figures of three men moving mysteriously by the roadside, and, as he drove along, observed that one of them was lifting an oblong object from the ground and placing it in the wagon. He instantly concluded that they were removing the body of his old friend, and hastened to Paine’s grave.
On making this discovery he hurried to New Rochelle and informed the constable of what had happened. That officer immediately organized a party to pursue the grave robbers.
Anticipating the possibility of pursuit Cobbett urged his team to a brisk trot, and rattled over the rough highway at a great rate of speed. For he knew that if he could cross the Kings Bridge without detention he would be safe from arrest, as he would be in New York County, beyond the jurisdiction of the officers of Westchester. But the constable was hot on his trail. A mile from Kings Bridge pursuers and pursued came within hearing of each other. The constable’s men could plainly distinguish the sound of wagon wheels ahead, and, realizing that those with the body were making every effort to escape them, whipped their horses to a furious gallop. But it was in vain. Mr. Cobbett reached the Kings Bridge ahead of them, and dashed over it to safety, just as they came galloping up on their panting steeds.
Numerous theories have been advanced as to Mr. Cobbett’s disposition of Paine’s body. The corpse is supposed to have been taken to England, Mr. Cobbett intending to demand its interment in Westminster Abbey. But the people of England refused to receive it, and Mr. Cobbett, it is said, to avoid arrest, threw it into the Thames. Others say that the body was taken to the East Indies. The most probable story of all, however, is that which credits Cobbett with having given the body decent burial in a remote English churchyard, although some authorities say it rests on no foundation.