By Robert Morrell
In His Footsteps, Finding Thomas Paine In Bordentown, N.J. Mae Kramer. Silver. Bordentown, Hometown Printing, 2007. 168pp. Illustrated. A4 Paperback. ISBN 0-9669913-4-6. Unpriced.
This book began life as a series of notes brought together by the author, who founded the Thomas Paine Society of Bordentown when she moved there a few years ago. She wanted to learn why he was there, what he did when he was, whom he knew and how they related to him. She also established a walking tour of the town, and this forms the basis of this extremely informative book. It is as much a history of the place when in the time of Paine and provides a great deal of background information appertaining to him.
It was lucky for the world that Thomas Paine surfaced when he did, so writes the author. In the right place at the right times, he touched the people of the thirteen colonies by writing, in understandable language decorated with witty pointed humour and punctuated with a passionate rage, revolutionary ideas whose time had clearly come. So opens the introduction.
The book’s chapters summarise its scope: ‘Thomas Paine’s American Hometown, Bordentown; ‘Thomas Paine’s Favourite Pub: Tavern House’; Bordentown’s Renaissance Man: Francis Hopkinson’; ‘The Bordens’; ‘The Kirkbrides at New Bellevue’; ‘The Statue of Thomas Paine in Bordentown’; ‘Thomas Paine’s Last Year: A New Perspective; ‘Afterwords’.
The text is supplemented by an extensive range of illustrations, mostly new to me. The book is a mine of useful information and a wonderful example of the sort of research that can be undertaken in a specific area. Mae Silver deserves the congratulations of everyone interested in the life of Thomas Paine.