Thomas Paine

Why did only six people attend Thomas Paine’s funeral?

I was researching Thomas Paine, and I wanted to find something interesting but unique. One thing I found that was very interesting is that only six people attended his funeral. I could not believe this due to the fact that all his works had inspired so many people. So, I wanted to discover exactly why Paine’s life went from fame to nothing.

"These are the times that try men's souls." This quotation from The Crisis not only describes the beginnings of the American Revolution, but also the life of Paine himself.

 Thomas Paine was born and raised in England. At the age of twelve Paine failed out of school and began apprenticing for his father.  Again he failed at being a corset maker and went to sea. Not too long after that he returned to England and became a tax officer. When he published The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772), arguing for a pay raise for officers he met Benjamin Franklin who encouraged him to come to America. Paine then came to Philadelphia where he started his journalism career. He wrote many inspiring works like Common Sense and The Crisis. Both of these were pamphlets that encouraged American Revolution and soldiers to fight for freedom. This pamphlet was so popular that taking in to account percentage of the population, it was read by or read to more people than today watch the Super Bowl (http://www.ushistory.org/paine/). So how can someone inspire so many people and then only six show up to his funeral? The answer is in his book The Age of Reasoning. The book criticizes organized religions and many of their doctrines and beliefs. Paine promoted deism as “the one true religion,” and emphasized philosophy and scientific study as the only source of true knowledge (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Thomas_Paine). Thomas Paine had a grand vision for society: he was against slavery, and he was one of the first to advocate a world peace organization and social security for the poor and elderly(http://www.ushistory.org/paine/).The publication of The Age of Reason made many enemies for Paine and overshadowed his services to the American Revolution (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Thomas_Paine). Increasingly neglected and disliked, Paine's last years were marked by poverty, poor health and alcoholism. When he died in New York on June 8, 1809, he was virtually an outcast. Since the Quaker church refused to let him be buried there, he was laid to rest in a corner of his small farm in New Rochelle.  (http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/paine.html). Only six people attended Paine’s funeral, two of whom were former slaves. He was considered a man ahead of his time and this is probably why he left the world almost unnoticed.