We don’t give much attention to Thomas Paine these days. He was from England and had tried to make a living alternatively as a grocer, a Methodist preacher, an excise officer, an English teacher and a writer. He wasn’t much of a businessman as you can see, and he had a difficult time relating to others. However, he was a creative and imaginative literary mastermind.
He was an unknown and moneyless unsuccessful writer who decided to migrate to America. He had met Benjamin Franklin in London, and Franklin gave him a letter of recommendation to Congress. Paine soon got a job working for The Pennsylvania Magazine. He wrote numerous articles for his new employer.
Benjamin Franklin, besides being an inventor, printer, and scientist, was an amateur agriculturist. He came to the rescue. He was a diplomat to France and was an honored guest at many a French dinner. Franklin came to one event where this particular French farmer had cooked up a meal with many different potato dishes. Indeed, every course of the meal had been made with pureed or otherwise prepared tuber dishes!
I told you a little about Patrick Henry’s retirement home, Red Hill, in Western Virginia, in my last blog. If you remember, Henry was married twice and had 17 children. Yes, some had grown and moved away, but several still lived with him at Red Hill. I don’t know precisely how many. Some may have returned with their own children.
Thomas Jefferson was building Monticello, his magnificent mountaintop home near Charlottesville, Virginia, when he married Martha Wayles Skelton. If you haven’t been there, you should really go. It not only teaches you about Tom, but also about what he had learned and accomplished during his lifetime.
Some of our Founding Fathers had complete disdain for newspapers. John Adams for example saw that the “Alien and Sedition Act” was approved and signed to keep newspapers from printing false and libelous stories about politicians.
In one of my classes as a guest instructor at a local High School, I asked a question, as I always do. I asked who was the first President of the United States of America. One young man braved his answer and responded: “Wasn’t it Abraham Lincoln?”
It was so interesting to read a report in the newspaper today about Philadelphia and the Mormons. You may know that the true name of the Mormon Church is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. They are referred to as the Mormons because they believe in a New Testament of Jesus Christ which is titled The Book of Mormon.
However, the original Patriots didn’t play football. Football hadn’t even been invented yet. Those original Patriots played for keeps and they created a new nation. The first one ever to be of the people, by the people and for the people.