PBA Galleries

Comprising: Grant Thorburn, Autograph Letters Signed, Hallets Cove [Long Island], New York, March 5, 1838, 2pp. To William L. Stone, considering whether Paine was a “Licentious Character”; and New York, May 14, 1838. 1 pg. To William G. Goddard, Providence, asking for return of a manuscript sketch of Paine’s Life which he had sent him earlier; Unsigned and undated 4 page Autograph Letter, apparently to Thorburn, criticizing the first Paine biography published after his death, and “the defence of Paine alluded to by your friend Goddard”; 4-page Autograph Letter/Manuscript, “The Life of T.P.”, unsigned and undated, possibly written by Goddard, but with address leaf franked by Rhode Island Congressman J.L. Tillinghast and mailed to Goddard in Providence; and “An Account of Thomas Paine received from Mary Rascoe”, unsigned and undated manuscript based on Thorburn’s interview notes, 3pp. Because of his atheism and “radical” politics, the famed author of “Common Sense”, was probably the most controversial notable of the American Revolution. A shelf of 19th century Paine biographies hotly debated his alcoholism, disreputable relations with women – and whether, on his deathbed in 1809, he “found religion”. These early papers record an investigation made less than 20 years after Paine’s death, when many of those who knew Paine in later life were still living - including the investigator himself: Grant Thorburn, a Scottish immigrant to New York who became prosperous selling seeds imported from England, and, in 1852, published an autobiography in which he explained how he had come to know Paine in the last years of his life, when “his company [was] shunned by the more respectable of his friends on account of his unpopular writings and hard drinking” and after his divorce from a “respectable young woman” who accused him of “cruel usage”. Thorburn often visited Paine at his New York lodging to argue politics and religion, later concluding that he was “the most unreasonable mortal I ever conversed with”. After writing a critical magazine account of Paine which “brought all the free-thinkers between Passamaquoddy and Baltimore on my back”, Thorburn decided to undertake this historical inquiry of his own, in conjunction with William Giles Goddard, a newspaper publisher and Professor at Brown University. Thorburn was diligent in interviewing Mary Rascoe, a Quaker neighbor of Paine’s who often took him refreshment while he was sick and dying and scribbling out a manuscript recanting his Atheism (which she believed was suppressed by his former friends). Thorburn himself doubted this, learning from Paine’s Doctor that when Paine screamed “Jesus!” as one of his last words, he was merely swearing in pain. These papers are apparently unknown to any Paine biographer.