Thomas Paine Monument
Thomas Paine, whose writings fueled the fight for American independence, could have purchased a home anywhere after the United States won the Revolutionary War. Instead of Philadelphia or New York, he chose a site roughly halfway between those two cities and bought a cottage in Bordentown City.
“Common Sense,” a pamphlet published by Paine in January 1776, made the case for the United States to separate from Great Britain six months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
Paine bought his Bordentown home in 1783 and lived there periodically, until his death at 72 in 1809. However, the fate of Paine’s four-room cottage on Farnsworth Avenue, the only home he ever owned, is uncertain.
The Bordentown Historical Society erected a statue of Paine at Prince and Courtland streets in 1997, one of two Paine statues in the United States. The other is also located in New Jersey, in Morristown.