When Richard Paine was born on 17 July 1773, in Gorham, Cumberland, Maine, United States, his father, Richard Paine, was 36 and his mother, Thankful Harding, was 32.
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Thomas Jefferson's American Declaration of Independence endorsed by Congress. Colonies declare independence.
"""At the end of the Second Continental Congress the 13 colonies came together to petition independence from King George III. With no opposing votes, the Declaration of Independence was drafted and ready for all delegates to sign on the Fourth of July 1776. While many think the Declaration was to tell the King that they were becoming independent, its true purpose was to be a formal explanation of why the Congress voted together to declare their independence from Britain. The Declaration also is home to one of the best-known sentences in the English language, stating, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."""""""
In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson authorized the creation of a light station on Whitehead Island. The light house went into service by 1807. It is the third-oldest light house in Maine. Whitehead Light still exists as the private property of Pine Island Camp, a non-profit organization.
English: variant of Payne .
History: The author of the republican treatise The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine (1737–1809), left England for North America in the mid 1770s, where he became involved in the movement that led to independence. His pamphlet of 1776, Common Sense, influenced the Declaration of Independence and furnished some of the arguments justifying it.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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