Paine family.

This collection includes the papers of four generations of the Paine family of Worcester, Mass. The first generation is represented by Timothy Paine (1730-1793), a 1748 graduate of Harvard, American Loyalist who remained in the United States through the Revolution, and an active civic leader in Worcester. Paine was the stepson of the wealthy John Chandler (1693-1762) of Worcester and he married his stepsister Sarah Chandler (1726-1811). They had nine children: William; Timothy (1752-1775), who died unmarried; Samuel; Hannah (1755-1841), who married Ebenezer Bradish; Nathaniel (1755-1757); Nathaniel; Anthony; John (1762-1832), who died unmarried; and Sarah.

The eldest son, Dr. William Paine (1750-1833), was a 1768 graduate of Harvard and an American Loyalist. William studied medicine in Salem, Mass., with Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke (1728-1829) and Joseph Orne (1749-1786). From 1773 to 1783, he was a partner in an apothecary shop in Worcester, Mass., with Levi Shepard ( - ) and Ebenezer Hunt (1745-1820). In 1774, he sailed for London. After securing a medical degree, which the University of Aberdeen produced for him on a few weeks' notice, he served with the British forces in American in various capacities including physician to His Majesty's Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After the war, he was granted land on Passamaquoddy Bay (on the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick), but by 1784 he was spending a good part of his time in Salem, Mass., the home of his wife, Lois Orne Paine (1756-1822). He eventually returned to Worcester and was naturalized a United States citizen in July of 1812. In his later years, he was an active civic leader in Worcester and maintained the family's business and agricultural interests.

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