Editing Thomas Paine (section)

==Death==
[[File:Thomas Paine's death mask.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|alt=Thomas Paine's death mask of white plaster|Paine's [[death mask]]]]
[[File:Thomas Paine plaque on Grove Street.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|This plaque hangs on the site where Thomas Paine died, on Grove Street in [[Greenwich Village]]]]
On the morning of June 8, 1809, Paine died, aged 72, at [[Marie's Crisis|59 Grove Street]] in [[Greenwich Village]], New York City.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ushistory.org/paine|title=Thomas Paine|website=ushistory.org|access-date=September 15, 2017|archive-date=September 15, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170915234532/http://www.ushistory.org/paine/|url-status=live}}</ref> Although the original building no longer exists, the present building has a plaque noting that Paine died at this location.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://forgotten-ny.com/1999/05/a-paine-in-the-village/|title=A Paine in the Village – Forgotten New York|last=Walsh|first=Kevin|language=en-US|access-date=March 12, 2019|date=May 1999|archive-date=April 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200417080708/https://forgotten-ny.com/1999/05/a-paine-in-the-village/|url-status=live}}</ref>

After his death, Paine's body was brought to [[New Rochelle, New York|New Rochelle]], but the [[Quakers]] would not allow it to be buried in their graveyard as per his last will, so his remains were buried under a walnut tree on his farm. In 1819, English agrarian radical journalist [[William Cobbett]], who in 1793 had published a hostile continuation<ref>William Cobbett, ''The Life of Thomas Paine, Interspersed with Remarks and Reflections'' (London: J. Wright, 1797)</ref> of Francis Oldys (George Chalmer)'s ''The Life of Thomas Paine'',<ref>"Francis Oldys" [George Chalmers], The Life of Thomas Paine. One Penny-Worth of Truth, from Thomas Bull to His Brother John (London: Stockdale, 1791)</ref> dug up his bones and transported them back to England with the intention to give Paine a heroic reburial on his native soil, but this never came to pass. The bones were still among Cobbett's effects when he died over fifteen years later but were later lost. There is no confirmed story about what happened to them after that, although various people have claimed throughout the years to own parts of Paine's remains, such as his skull and right hand.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Paine Monument at Last Finds a Home|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1905/10/15/archives/the-paine-monument-at-last-finds-a-home-accepted-by-new-rochelle.html|date=October 15, 1905|access-date=February 23, 2008|archive-date=February 26, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180226192603/https://www.nytimes.com/1905/10/15/archives/the-paine-monument-at-last-finds-a-home-accepted-by-new-rochelle.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Rehabilitating Thomas Paine, Bit by Bony Bit|last=Chen|first=David W.|newspaper=The New York Times|url=http://www.mindspring.com/~phila1/nyt330.htm|access-date=February 23, 2008|archive-date=May 16, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070516140408/http://www.mindspring.com/~phila1/nyt330.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>[[Edwin G. Burrows|Burrows, Edwin G.]] and [[Mike Wallace (historian)|Wallace, Mike]]. ''[[Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898]]''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 510.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

At the time of his death, most American newspapers reprinted Paine's obituary notice from the ''[[New York Evening Post]]'' that was in turn quoting from ''The American Citizen'',<ref>{{Cite news|title=Paine's Obituary (click the "1809" link; it is 1/3 way down the 4th column)|newspaper=New York Evening Post|url=http://www.classicapologetics.com/special/painerelief.html|date=June 10, 1809|access-date=November 22, 2013|archive-date=October 19, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019010228/http://www.classicapologetics.com/special/painerelief.html|url-status=live}}</ref> which read in part: "He had lived long, did some good, and much harm". Only six mourners came to his funeral, two of whom were black, most likely [[Freedman|freedmen]]. Months later appeared a hostile biography by James Cheetham, who had admired him since the latter's days as a young radical in Manchester, and who had been friends with Paine for a short time before the two fell out. Many years later the writer and orator [[Robert G. Ingersoll]] wrote:

{{blockquote|Thomas Paine had passed the legendary limit of life. One by one most of his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. Maligned on every side, execrated, shunned and abhorred – his virtues denounced as vices – his services forgotten – his character blackened, he preserved the poise and balance of his soul. He was a victim of the people, but his convictions remained unshaken. He was still a soldier in the army of freedom, and still tried to enlighten and civilize those who were impatiently waiting for his death. Even those who loved their enemies hated him, their friend — the friend of the whole world – with all their hearts. On the 8th of June 1809, death came – Death, almost his only friend. At his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military display. In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of the dead – on horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart dominated the creed of his head – and, following on foot, two negroes filled with gratitude — constituted the funeral cortege of Thomas Paine.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Thomas Paine (1892)|author=Robert G. Ingersoll|year=1892|publisher=Thomas Paine National Historical Association|url=http://thomaspaine.org/aboutpaine/thomas-paine-1892-by-robert-ingersoll.html|access-date=December 3, 2017|archive-date=October 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171026121037/http://www.thomaspaine.org/aboutpaine/thomas-paine-1892-by-robert-ingersoll.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}}