Robert Treat Paine
BIRTH
Mar 11, 1731
Boston, Massachusetts
DEATH
May 11, 1814
Boston, Massachusetts
FAMILY
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Paine, Robert Treat
(1731-1814)
Robert Treat Paine was a lawyer, politician and Founding Father of the United States who signed the Continental Association and Declaration of Independence as a representative of Massachusetts. He served as the state's first attorney general and as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court.
HOMES:
MARKER
Site of Robert Treat Paine Home Marker
1 Federal St, Boston, MA 02110
6
WIFE
Sally Cobb Paine
(1744-1816)
Charles Paine
(1799-1853)
Places | Image | Address | GPS | Site |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Minute Man National Historical Park | 210 N Great Rd, Lincoln, MA 01773 | MUSEUM | ||
Old South Meeting House | 310 Washington St, Boston, MA 02108 | MUSEUM | ||
Boston Common | 139 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02111 | PARK | ||
Granary Burying Ground | Tremont Place, Boston, Massachusetts, 02133, USA | MARKER | ||
Site of Robert Treat Paine Home Marker | 1 Federal St, Boston, MA 02110 | MARKER | ||
Salem Town House Marker | Essex St &, Washington St, Salem, MA 01970 | MARKER |
DIED:
Boston, Massachusetts
May 11, 1814
Robert Treat Paine was born in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, in British America, on March 11, 1731. He was one of five children of the Rev. Thomas Paine and Eunice (Treat) Paine. His father was pastor of Franklin Road Baptist Church in Weymouth but moved his family to Boston in 1730 and subsequently became a merchant there. His mother was the daughter of Rev. Samuel Treat, whose father Maj. Robert Treatwas one of the principal founders of Newark, New Jersey, and later a governor of Connecticut.
Paine served in the Massachusetts General Court from 1773 to 1774, in the Provincial Congress from 1774 to 1775, as well as represented Massachusetts at the Continental Congress from 1774 through 1776. In that Congress he signed the final appeal to the king (the Olive Branch Petition of 1775), and helped frame the rules of debate and acquire gunpowder for the coming war, and in 1776 was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
He returned to Massachusetts at the end of December 1776 and was speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1777, a member of the executive council in 1779, a member of the committee that drafted the state constitution in 1780. He was Massachusetts Attorney General from 1777 to 1790 and prosecuted the treason trials following Shays' Rebellion. From 1777 to 1785, his acting Attorney General was Benjamin Kent. In 1780, he was a charter member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He last served as a justice of the State Supreme Court from 1790 to 1804 when he retired.