Thomas Paine: Death of a Forgotten Founding Father

This is an "I Heart" podcast, Guaranteed Human. It's a sunny Saturday afternoon in April, and I've driven up to New Rochelle, New York, a suburb just north of New York City. It's a park like 3 blocks away, I mean people are showing up for this thing. I'm here for a celebration. A lot of activity here, a lot of excitement, really more of a commemoration. You know, the mayor is going to be here on the dignitarium. You see, everyone is gathered here today to honor the person that put New Rochelle on the mat. You travel out of state, and you tell someone, "Well, I live in Rochelle," the first thing they'll tell you is, "Oh, the Dick Van Dyke Show!" The Dick Van Dyke Show. Starring Dick Van Dyke. Beloved actor Dick Van Dyke played comedy writer Rob Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke Show. A young Mary Tyler Moore played his wife Laura. "Would you state your name and address please?" "It's Mrs. Laura Petrie, one for a Bonnie Metta Road, New Rochelle, New York." That's right, the fictional couple lived in New Rochelle. And today, the townspeople are dedicating the real Bonnie Metta Road to the hit 1960 series. "You could take a picture in the TV, so I would love to do that with Nancy Amadoo." Dick Van Dyke Show creator, 97-year-old comedy legend Carl Reiner even skiked in for the occasion. "He's bringing our guy all sweater, he looks great, actually." The reason the show was set in New Rochelle? When Reiner was just starting out, he and his family lived here. "Every time I saw a little of me and my wife and kids in it." Now, as much as I love Rob and Laura Petrie, there's another person, a real person who lived in New Rochelle, and who was pretty important. Other than Carl Reiner, you know who else is from here? "J-10 for a while." "Andry Mitchell." "Andry Mitchell." "And Willie Mais." "Willie Mais still live in New Rochelle? Off of Pinebrook?" "Oh, let's see, I'm trying to re-think, I'm drawing a blank." "Well, let's, he wrote pamphlets." Carl Reiner knows who I'm talking about. "No more important name in our history than Tom Payne." Yes, Tom is Payne. He didn't just write pamphlets. With his pen, he helped birth this very country. "Oh my God, could he write?" "You're a great writer, and you acknowledge that he was a great writer as well." "Oh, well, let's, I scribble, he wrote, yes." Payne's pamphlet, common sense, is not only one of the best-selling publications in American history. It was the intellectual spork that lit the fuse for the American Revolution. Without him, there might not be a United States. Yet when Payne died, only six people showed up at his funeral. The paltry opet that was published at the time summed up his life in this line. He had lived long, did some good, and much harm. Even after Payne died, he couldn't rest in peace. The guys' bones were stolen. "And was Tomas Payne a founding father?" "I don't know, the answer to that was he not?" In this episode, we'll tell you why Payne matters, and we'll give him the send-off he deserves, complete with an original MOBITS production number. Take no mistake, no pain, no gain, of independence. From CBS Sunday morning and Simon and Schuster, I'm Mo'Raca, and this is MOBITS wearys. This MOBIT, Tomas Payne, June 8, 1809, death of a forgotten founding father. "Tom Payne practically started his whole country." "You mean his dead?" "Of course!" "What are you learning about dead people for? All I want you to do is teach you how to act with a life, people." "Well, education's a very difficult thing to control, Harry. One thing legal." "Work on her and not me." That was the incomparable comedian, Judy Holiday, teaching her bullying boyfriend a thing or two in the 1950 film Born Yesterday. The scene's funny because it's true. Many of us have heard of Tomas Payne, but don't really know what he did. This is an important guy, right? "Yes, before scientific polls, one way to measure public opinion, a proxy for it, anyway, might be, pamphlet sales." Anthony Selvanto heads up the CBS News Polling Unit. I asked him to help us gauge how well recognized or unrecognized Tomas Payne is as a founding father. The polling unit called a random sampling of 1,000 people. The way this one is asked is, you know, which of these people is a founding father and Tomas Payne's name was put out there? The choices were Abraham Lincoln, Tomas Payne, Frederick Douglass Fitzgerald, Tomas Grant III, who you know as. "Oh, you got me." "Anthony." "He was the president of the TV show scandal with Carrie Washington, come on." "Ah, thank you." Other choices included James Tiberius Kirk, the captain of the Enterprise, Colonel Sanders, Will Smith, Frank Sinatra, and I don't know. And what were the results? "Well, Frank Sinatra comes in at 1 percent." Old blue eyes might not be happy with that, but here's the most striking result. Forty-three percent selected Abraham Lincoln as the one founding father on the list. "Then obviously he comes some years after the people we went to think of as founding fathers." "In fact, four sports, seven years later." Exactly, sir. Just 32 percent of respondents correctly named Tomas Payne. So the recognition of Payne as a founding father is mixed at best, even if most of us recognize the man's words. "I know. And it's amazing. People may have known that he said these are the times of time in souls. They may know that he said we have it in our power to begin the world over again. They may know that he wrote common sense, but they don't really know who he is." It's Payne biographer Craig D. Nelson, not to be confused with actor Craig T. Nelson, a little bit of housekeeping. How often are you asked if you starred in the sitcom coach? All the time, really? Yeah. And all the time. In fact, I think it helped me launch my career that people thought I was coached, so they would buy the book and then they'd throw up at autographings and they'd be horribly disappointed, but too late. You already paid. Good point. You got him in the tent. Why not? Why did you want to write about Tom Payne? Well, I read this funny little article that talked about how ten years after he died, his biggest friend went to New Rochelle and dug his bones up. So today, if you do a Thomas Payne book and you will find this out when this bucket comes out, people will contact you to see if you would like to buy a bone. And have you ever touched one of Thomas Payne's bones? Yes. Which one? Which bone? I think it was like a finger, but someone showed up and tried to sell me something. And I want to assure listeners that we will talk about what happened to his bones later in the episode. But suffice it to say Craig, this kind of devotion is remarkable. When Thomas Payne was alive, he was the most famous person in the world. He knew everyone. He knew Jefferson. He knew Washington. He knew Robespierre. He knew, I mean, it's astonishing who is associated with him. And he'd come a very long way. As opposed to most of the other founding fathers who came from money, Payne was born in 1737 into humble circumstances in England. He's like the working class founder. What inspires him to even come to America? He had the most horrible life you could possibly have in England. His mother was an Anglican named Francis Cock, who married a quaker named Joseph Payne, thus making her, anyway, Joseph was a stay maker. Another way of saying he made corsets. That were a combination like a boostier and a girdle, this giant one piece thing that women wore. Right. Right. But anyway, so that's what he did. Young Thomas drops out of school at 12, a few years later, when Britain goes to war with France, Payne seeks adventure on the high seas as a privateer, capturing enemy ships for the British government. It looks like he made quite a bit of money doing that, and he ended up taking, you know, junior year abroad, he ended up as a 20 year old man wandering around London, taking classes, basically giving himself the education that the middle class founders are getting in schools. He got himself. He learned how to write. He learned all about the classics. So Thomas Payne is like a sponge. Yes. He's absorbing this. Yes. He has bills to pay, though, so he takes up his father's trade of stay making. But things are too tight, Payne can't make ends meet, and soon falls into debt. And this is where things really start going south. And so you see Thomas Payne moving from town to town, one step ahead of his creditors. And his personal life is a disaster. He has one wife who dies in child's worth and loses the child too. He has another wife. He's separated from. He tries to be a stay maker. He tries to be a grocer. He tries to be a tax collector, and fails at all of these things. During his time as a tax collector, that Payne first catches the activist bug. The country's ex-size officers, another way of saying tax collectors, hadn't received a raise in over a century, and Payne felt they were overdue. So he writes one of his very first pamphlets, demanding better pay. It doesn't go over so well. He's fired from his job and forced to sell off most of his possessions. So personally and professionally, he's kind of a wreck. There's no place to go but to get on a boat. Luckily for Payne, he had made a valuable connection in London. Benjamin Franklin, who was representing colonial interests in England, met Payne and was impressed by the young firebrand. Benjamin Franklin called him his adopted political son. And so, carrying a letter of recommendation from Franklin, Thomas Payne set sail for the new world. But the voyage across the Atlantic isn't easy. Payne almost dies from Typhus. He arrives, none too soon, in November of 1774. He lands in Philadelphia where Franklin's from. And then he's in Philadelphia. And he's the place to go. Yeah, this is the big city in America at that moment. And almost immediately, he becomes the editor of Pennsylvania Magazine. Payne builds Pennsylvania Magazine into the widest circulating in the colonies. But it's with a different kind of periodical that he makes his biggest impact. And he was a big, big, big hotty in the pamphlet world. And yes, pamphlets were hot in the 1770s. What's the deal with pamphlets? Oh. Because I associate pamphlets with pre-9/11 when people could roam around airports with these things, handing them to you, who would arrive, saying, "Please join my group." So pamphlet is a little tiny essay. They were like ten pages, maybe tops. And they were just printed on a great big broad sheet and then folded up and heads it out to people. And they'd have the biggest local heroes would be publishing pamphlets. So you would read Thomas Jefferson pamphlets and you'd read Alexander Hamilton pamphlets. Does he make a name for himself quickly? No. That happens because of offering to write a pamphlet to come to Americans that they should no longer call themselves Britons, that they should call themselves Americans. I mean, you say that in a very understated way, that's kind of a big deal. The pamphlet Craig is talking about was written six months before the Declaration of Independence. It was common sense. After Uncle Tom's cabin, it's the most influential piece of writing in American history. And he turns every single thing the British had been saying on their heads and comes up with an explanation for why Americans should go it alone and why it'll be great to be an American and we'll have this whole continent and we'll run our own affairs and we'll stop being insulted by the British. You see, the great majority of colonists had come here with real estate contracts that guaranteed that the only taxes they'd have to pay were local. But like all good deals that seemed too good to be true, it was. When the British needed to fund the Seven Years War, the taxes started piling up. The stamp act, the paper act, all of these different acts they pursued. So Tom Payne is tapping into real fury, a sense of betrayal, fueled by his own outrage. Payne articulates in common sense a grand ambition for the would-be nation. The cause of America is in great measure, the cause of all mankind. I mean, that is a topic sentence. It's no surprise that Bartlett's book of quotations is full of lines from Thomas Payne, lines that frankly, I don't have the voice to deliver. Now, who do I know with a voice, sonorous, stintorian, and authoritative enough to read Thomas Payne's words? Wait, wait, don't tell me. I know who does. From NPR and WBEC Chicago, this is Wait, wait, don't tell me the NPR news quiz. You know who could do this? Bill Curtis, the scorekeeper on Wait, wait, don't tell me. He does a lot of movie trailers, you know, in a world, but you want him to read these lines. You know, because we should get Bill Curtis to read some of these lines. We're going to do that. Fantastic. And we'll include me actually saying it right now, because it'll make the audience feel like they're part of the whole process. And so I called in a favor. Now my friend Bill Curtis isn't just scorekeeper for Wait, wait, where I've been a panelist the last 20 years. He's an Emmy-winning news anchor and perhaps most legendarily, the narrator of the movie Anchorman. And in San Diego, one anchor man was more man than the rest. His name was Ron Burgundy. So here we go. Tell him since. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. Tell it Bill. Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state and intolerable one. Can't argue with that. There is something very absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. Goosebumps, right? It is not in numbers, but in unity that our great strength lies. It's important to remember that the very notion of the colonies banding together a central argument of common sense was new. Did the colonies even think they had anything to do with each other? No, they thought of themselves as Virginians or New Yorkers. They did not really identify with each other yet. Up until common sense, being American wasn't really a concept or a compliment. The word American at this point met at Cracker Hillbilly that it met someone who was a piece of trash, and because the English considered all of their colonies to be outlying low rent, trashy vulgar people who were stupid and ignorant. Pain rebranded the word American. Beyond separation from England, common sense called for an end to hereditary monarchy. Back to you Bill. In short, monarchy and succession have laid not this or that kingdom only, but the world in blood and ashes. At first, pain kept his name off the pamphlet. First of all, it was a very dangerous thing to write. It was treasonous. Does he sign it later? Yes, and he does take credit for it eventually, and people know who it is anyway, because it's a very big small town at the time. What are the other founding fathers think when this thing catches fire? Oh, Thomas Jefferson thinks he's fantastic and they become close friends. A lot of people attributed it first to John Adams, and at first he says, "If only I did," and then he and pain have a falling out in time. In spite of the bad blood between the two men, Adams reportedly said, "Without the pen of the author of common sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain, but it's not just what pain writes, it's how he writes." Pain understood that since most people at the time were illiterate, common sense had to be written in plain English that could be read out loud. It's very modern. He's writing for broadcast, not for one of the outlier cable channels where you're preaching to the choir. No, he's trying to reach as many people as possible. And he does, right? If there had been no Thomas Pain, there would have been no what? There would have been, eventually, the United States might have been formed, but it wouldn't have been unified into a country the way it was in the manner that it was. You give him and common sense that much credit. Absolutely. Pain puts his money where his mouth is, donating the proceeds from common sense to the Continental Army. And shortly after the colonies declare independence, Pain joins the army, serving as an aid to camp to General Nathaniel Greene, but he doesn't stop writing. Pain's sequel to common sense is the American crisis, a whole series of pamphlets that serves as a rallying cry during the conflict's darkest days. Well, this is during the very long period in which the Americans are losing the Revolutionary War. He's trying to buck up everybody's spirits. He's writing all these so that people don't give up on Washington and the war. There's a spectacular moment where he writes one of his biggest pieces, and it's the night before they're going to go from Philadelphia to Trenton. The Washington. The Washington crossing, the Delaware famous picture. And it's the first real victory of the American Revolution. And the night before? He has them all listened to Pain's words by candlelight. So it's a very beautiful thing. These are the times that try men's souls. The suburb's soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us. That the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. So the war ends, and Thomas Pain is riding high. His writing unified the colonists, roused the armies of our land to victory, delivered us to freedom. It's a ghoulish hypothetical, but had he died, you know, say in 1783, would his reputation be different? Oh, absolutely. It's a shame. In fact, in fact, the die young leave a pretty corpse. There's the number one person who should have done it. But that's not how history works. So, how did Thomas Pain go from legend to pariah? The answer lies in what happened after the war. I'm back in New Rochelle at the Thomas Pain Cottage. So look, it doesn't look like Monticello or Mount Vernon or Hyde Park, but, you know, it has, it has status. It's got the plaque, so that's a big deal. The plaque I'm referring to designates this modest domicile, a national historic landmark. New York State gave this property to Pain after the American Revolution, in gratitude for his service to the country. Today it's playing host to a colonial fair. And some folks are taking the theme very seriously. Obsessed? Well, then surely these two young historians know something about our episodes under song Founding Father. So, what do you know about Thomas Pain? He wrote common sense. What else could he do? He lived in that house over there. Right. Is he a Founding Father? No. Why not? No. That, I don't really know. Okay, but you just know that he's not a Founding Father. Now, who is a Founding Father? Alexander Hamilton. He is. If there was a big, if there was a musical about Thomas Pain, then maybe, maybe you'd think of him as a Founding Father? Maybe. Thank you for that insight, Rachel and Aaron. Now back to post-revolutionary war America, where Thomas Pain is having a tough time fitting in. That's partly because of his temperament. When historians fall in love with their subjects, you can't fall in love with this guy. He's too difficult. He's just too cranky and difficult and nutty and- Did he just have a terrible personality? I think it alternated because you see him spending time with Jefferson and time with Washington and time with Franklin. You have all these wonderful stories about him having wonderful times with all of these people. So there was something very charming about him, but then there was this other side to him that people found repulsive. So it seems to flip back and forth. Repulsive is a very strong word, but not as strong as the words John Adams used to describe him. He called Pain, quote, "a mongrel between pig and puppy begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf." Actually, it sounds much better when Bill Curtis says it, Bill. A mongrel between pig and puppy begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf. At his core, Thomas Pain is an agitator and activist, a revolutionary. That's the only setting he knows. He doesn't know how to turn it off and talk about soccer or the real housewives. I mean, you know Franklin would have loved dishing about the housewives. So while the other founding fathers shift into statesmen mode, setting themselves up with cushy government jobs, Pain is still on the warpath. And that warpath leads him straight back to his home country of England, where he publishes his next book. In The Rights of Man, he defends the French Revolution and citizen rights. Just like common sense, The Rights of Man, which Pain dedicates to George Washington, becomes an instant bestseller. Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another. And it becomes my duty to guarantee as well, as to possess. While The Rights of Man does Bafo Box Office, becoming one of the most widely read books of its day, it doesn't go over so well with the London critics. It gets an attack on the monarchy and the British accused him of treason and he has to leave town. And he gets out just in time, right? He's tried in absentia. Yes. Pain heads to France, where he tries to keep his head. He goes to France to take part in the French Revolution. He's actually elected to the National Assembly of France. He's a French legislator, even though he can't speak French. Pain is on the side of the revolutionaries, who have deposed King Louis XVI. But Pain is also anti-capital punishment, and the more extreme revolutionaries, also known as the Jacobins and led by Robespierre, are crazy about their guillotine. The nonviolent pain finds himself denounced as a counter-revolutionary and thrown into prison during what's known as the reign of terror. Surely, his whole friends back across the pond can help him out, but the American government does nothing to help him get out. And Jefferson could have, Washington could have, no one lifts a finger because they've sort of had enough of him. The American ambassador to France, the even less well-known founding father, Governor Morris, who I should point out was never governor of anything, doesn't do Jacques to help pain. Pain gets so fed up, he does the unthinkable. He writes a widely published letter, Trashing George Washington. And as to you, sir, treacherous in private friendship, for so you have been to me and that and the day of danger, and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate, or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any. I mean, where does this spleen, this anger come from? Well, this comes out of them not helping him when he's imprisoned. Now, the reason folks back in America weren't helping pain while he was in that French prison is partly because of what pain wrote while he was in that prison. His most controversial book, The Age of Reason, its subject religion. My own mind is my own church. A pretty great line, yes, and pretty inflammatory. In The Age of Reason, pain doesn't hold back. He refutes the divinity of Christ and says this about organized religion. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me, no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. Publishing The Age of Reason earns pain a reputation as an infidel, an atheist, and even an anti-Christ. In truth, pain's views weren't much different from the other founding fathers. He was a deist, meaning he believed in a supreme being which created the universe, but which didn't intervene in human affairs. But the other founding fathers were shrewd enough not to articulate their views and defend the masses. So he did actually believe in a God, and he wasn't really an atheist, but he thought that religion had turned people, so that's why he decided to attack it. But he did it in a very sort of crazy way where no one who was a religious person was going to read this and say, "Oh, you're right, I should give up religion," so it was just sort of pointless. So the great persuader sort of becomes the opposite? Well, it was a horrible idea because you didn't try to affect the mass of people and take away their belief system. Pain eventually gets out of prison in 1794, when in one of history's ironies, Robespierre is himself guillotined. By the time pain returns to the United States, he's isolated and miserable, a shell of the man who had helped inspire the creation of this very country. He's even denied the right to vote, the rationale being he's no longer American after his stint in France. In his final days, he takes increasing comfort in Brandy, the drink, not a woman named Brandy. We know he was a mean drunk for one thing, and we know that he couldn't handle alcohol well, and we know that these basic, only from what other people have said, that they found him drunk on the street, and they found him in these situations. He has a big nose and he had rosacea, so frequently it's red. Is it like a gin blossom from drinking? Well, it looks like that, but it's like a tip on your nose. Yes, exactly. He's like, so not taking care of himself. His toenails are like claws, they've grown up into claws. The talons. Yeah, exactly. Look at those old cartoons of magpies on the power lines. Right. The toenails are curled around. I forget what their names were. The crow's, right? Yeah. Heckle and jackle. Heckle and jackle and jackle. He's got toenails like heckle and jackle's claws. Yeah. And are they dirty? Oh, sure. No, he's not taking care of himself at all. No, it's just, it's very sad, but at the same time, it's charted. You know, you actually see where he, alienates every single person who might help him. He turns against everyone, and it's horribly sad. It's not clear how much of pain's reputation for drinking was the slanderous work of his enemies. One thing is certain, Thomas Payne was uncelebrated when he died on June 8, 1809 in the New York City neighborhood of Greenwich Village. He was 72 years old. So he's taken up to New Rochelle to be buried, and six people come for the burial. And who comes? His servant, woman, and her two sons, and someone who's hired to move the body around and bring the casket around, and then two neighbors from the area. So six people show up, and it's pathetic. Well, I would like to give him a proper send-off, and I know just where to do it. Thomas Payne dropped dead in what's now a legendary piano bar in the heart of Greenwich Village. The bar was purchased by a French woman named Marie Dumont back in 1929. She wanted to honor Payne's legacy and the pamphlet series American Crisis, the one that Washington and his men read for inspiration during the Revolutionary War, hence the bar's name Marie's Crisis. You know Marie's Crisis? Yes, exactly. What do you think of that idea? If we did a memorial for Tom Payne, a memorial duover at Marie's Crisis, you'd like that. Absolutely. You would come in and say if you were to deliver a sort of eulogy. Absolutely. Terrific. We'll have food, we'll have drink. What kind of music should we play? We could do a drinking song from the era, which were very popular. Better yet, we could sing an original song in our Thomas Payne Memorial duover. And I know just the people who could write a memorial service showstopper. Hey, it's Mau. I'm visiting with the brilliant Larry O'Keefe and Mel Benjamin. They are the ultimate team. They wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway musical Legally Blonde. Separately, now wrote the lyrics for Mean Girls. And Larry co-wrote the music lyrics and book for Heather's The Musical. And they're married. We've been friends since college. They've agreed to write a big closing number for our Thomas Payne Memorial duover. Let's get down to brass attacks. Does anything rhyme with pamphlet? Oh, damn. Well, you know, it depends on how pop and hip hop we're going to go. You know, John Adams might say that Tom Payne's latest pamphlet is the biggest scam yet. Yeah. And so I intend to slam it. That's nice. You know, this does not have to be a somber affair. I feel like we're looking for something with a little bit of a popular feel. It's hummable, repeatable. We've already kind of determined we want a sing-along that would be appropriate for a piano bar. Great. So that means a certain level of ra-ra, a certain level of fun and goofiness. OK, they're going to need some time to write this song. In the meantime, I'm going to tell you what happened to Thomas Payne after he died. You may remember biographer Craig Nelson mentioning Payne's bones. Well, there's a whole story there. Thomas Payne doesn't have a grave site because his body was taken from his grave. It's author Best Love Joy. My book is called Rest in Pieces, the curious fates of famous corpses. Best writes how an Englishman by the name of William Cobbett traveled to New Rochelle. Don, one September morning in 1819, he dug up Payne's body out of the ground and packed it into a trunk and got on a ship to Liverpool with it. He planned to build a magnificent monument to Payne for which he'd need money. It planned a big fundraiser for the monument he wanted to build and it ended up being scheduled for the same day that King George III died, which was just really bad timing. Scheduling conflicts aside, it's not like many brits back then had any interest in memorializing Payne. He was still persona non-grata there. So Cobbett basically gave up his plans for the monument. And it basically let Thomas Payne's bones just kind of molder in a trunk in a corner of his house for years. When Cobbett himself dies, the trunk of moldering bones goes on a seemingly endless journey. First to a neighbor, then to a tailor, then next fall into the hands of a radical publisher. But at that point, the trail grows not exactly cold but pretty murky and complicated. Other people claim to have some of the bones. One fan apparently found a piece of his brain and returned it to New Rochelle. And there's a rumor that Payne's brain is actually inside a monument on the grounds and like a hollow portion of the bus, but no one's really sure where on the farm it is. And then throughout the 20th century, bits of Thomas Payne were reported all over Europe and other parts of the world. There's a rumor that parts of the bones were made into buttons, but we don't have a lot of detail about that. Payne's bones were crisched for the mill when I was meeting with Larry and now. There are rumors of a leg bone in the ball and the wall of a tower in England. And it's probable that the skull has been located in Wales, but it's now in Australia. I'm hearing the phrase, "Where are my bones at?" I'm hearing that. Where are my bones at? From the front to back. Now as you're feeling that. Oh my God. Payne's remains. Payne's remains. And he does remain, doesn't he? He does. Finally, the happy day arrives, our Thomas Payne Memorial due over at Marie's crisis. Hey everybody. Welcome. So excited that you're all here. This sit tight out here for a few more minutes, we'll start then you in in just a few minutes or so. Sound good? Mourners line up outside. I have a lot of friends that have performed here before, but I just, I don't really know the significance, I guess. At the front entrance, there's a memorial plaque. It says Thomas Payne, so there's a picture of Thomas Payne, and oh, he died on this site. This young man is about to learn a lot more. Good afternoon. I'm Mooraka and welcome to Marie's crisis. 210 years ago where we convene Thomas Payne died. As obituary read in part, he had lived long, done some good, and much harm. That's just not the way to treat a founding father. And so we gather here today for a Thomas Payne Memorial due over. Please welcome Payne Biographer Craig Nelson. You know, I'm really happy to be invited because there were six people at his funeral, and I guess there's like 15 here today, so yeah, it's working, it's working. As promised, Craig Nelson delivers the unity. Thomas Payne's common sense, just beginning by asking you a couple of questions, why should a candidate be ruled by an island? And why should the leader of our government be the child of the person who had the job before him, and it ended with, we have it in our power to begin the world over again. The crowd is riveted, especially when Craig starts talking about Thomas Payne's bones. So right now at this moment, there's a man on his deathbed, and he's saying, "And to you, my darling daughter, I bequeath the tibia of the immortal Thomas Ray." Oh my God, Craig, your energy, like it's amazing. Don't ever do cocaine. Now if we were doing this back in 1809, we might have thought to bring a mutton roast. But instead, we brought a comedian, one of the very best, to roast Payne. My buddy from the Daily Show, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my friend, Lewis Black. I never really thought that my career would lead me to this moment. I really expected much more of myself than to be roasting a dead man. But that's the way it is. What is it with pamphlets? You know what else they call pamphlets, writers? They call them lazy. Couldn't write more than 20 pages? I guess Thomas Payne couldn't write all the time. He needed a safe time for sleeping and drinking and annoying the shit out of people at party. So now Payne is exactly remembered as a legend. I mean, Ronald Reagan beat the Soviets and got an airport in DC named after him. What do you get? A gay par in the West Village named after you? Did you feel that? That was Thomas Payne rolling around in his grave. Oh wait, that's right, they stole his ball. People ate, people drank, and then it was time for the finale. And now we end our Thomas Payne Memorial redo with what else? A production number written by Nell Benjamin and Lauren Sokeeth. [Cheers and applause] [music plays] ♪ Both Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Free to glass and we'll try to explain ♪ ♪ Why every American dick and jane ♪ ♪ Should drink to Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Everyone drinks again ♪ ♪ Young Tom wrote that all kings are tyrants ♪ ♪ And King George is a stupid brutish man ♪ ♪ Who's laid the world in ashes ♪ ♪ Schooled all kings and fascists ♪ ♪ Time to kick them out for as we can ♪ ♪ But I don't care ♪ ♪ Oh Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Everyone drinks ♪ ♪ So now founding fathers came to power ♪ ♪ But Porton could never rise that high ♪ ♪ He was moved and melancholic ♪ ♪ And a world-class alcoholic ♪ ♪ He wore two extra times ♪ ♪ And said, oh my ♪ ♪ Oh Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Who wide hands his name in his place ♪ ♪ Always hunting and dragons to be slain ♪ ♪ The drink turns Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Everyone drinks ♪ ♪ Everyone drinks ♪ ♪ And then the French began that revolution ♪ ♪ They said, Thomas, come and help us keep it healed ♪ ♪ But Tom said, don't kill your king ♪ ♪ French reply ♪ ♪ Are you kidding? ♪ ♪ The Prince were right, you are a crock miss you ♪ ♪ Oh Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Where the cause, his genius was plain ♪ ♪ But this bleemishness and our friendship's plain ♪ ♪ But may our two Thomas Payne drink sadly ♪ ♪ Thomas died and his bones were sold and scattered ♪ ♪ But he lived in us to this very day ♪ ♪ Both his love of liberty and his weird misanthropy ♪ ♪ Or hardwired in our nation's B.M.A. ♪ ♪ Glory ♪ ♪ Oh Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Such a shame that your king went down the drain ♪ ♪ But tonight we shall sing your name again ♪ ♪ Who drink to Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Oh Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Such a shame that your king went down the drain ♪ ♪ But tonight we shall sing your name again ♪ ♪ Who drink to Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Who will dance once and tire a tainted noble ♪ ♪ To the point of greeting gifts ♪ ♪ Of downward war for streeting and hard Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne ♪ ♪ Oh Thomas Payne ♪ (audience applauding) (audience applauding) - Next time on Mobituaries, the pioneering black congressman of Reconstruction. - Reconstruction is a moment of incredible hopefulness. - When Frederick Douglass saw the portrait of Hiram Rebels, he said at last the black man is represented something other than a monkey. - I certainly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary. If you would, please rate and review our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram. And you can follow me on Twitter @Moroca. For more great content about Thomas Payne, please visit Mobituaries.com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Gideon Evans and Megan Marcus. Our team of producers also includes Harry Wood and me, Moroca. It was edited by Meg Dalton, and engineered by Dan DeZula and Mark Cantori. Additional editing by Sam Egan and David Fox. Special thanks to the great Bill Curtis, Donna Lapietra, Megan D. Trey, Michael Crowder, Nora Slenemsky, Randy Taylor, and the owners of Marie's Crisis, Howard Braggman, John May, Paul Miles, Don Ralph, Lawrence O. Flahaven, Emma Cortland, Mindy Eisenberg Stark, the Thomas Payne Cottage, and all-wise metery, indispensable support from genius Denesky, Richard Roer, and everyone at CBS News Radio. The showstopper "Drink to Thomas Payne" was composed by Lawrence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin. Our knock-em-dead cast of singers and musicians included Jane Bernard, Matti Silva, Rachel Flynn, Brooke Cantana, and Jacob Reenstra. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart. And as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp, without whom Mo Bitchwerees couldn't live. We leave you now with more of Bill Curtis as John Adams insulting Thomas Payne. All right, OK. Hi, it's Mo. If you're enjoying Mo Bitchwerees the podcast, may I invite you to check out Mo Bitchwerees the book. It's chock full of stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put their butts on the line. Sports teams that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went kaput and dragons. Yes, dragons. You see, people used to believe the dragons were real until-- just get the book. You can order Mo Bitchwerees the book from any online bookseller or stop by your local bookstore. And look for me when I come to your city. Tour information and lots more at mopitchwerees.com. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.