Trego's Mountain Ear

You probably don’t recall Robert Treat Payne, but most of us have seen his name, high among the signatures on the Declaration of Independence. So far as I can find out, he was the only man who signed the Declaration who had been to Greenland. I suspect that one out of fifty-six stood as the highest proportion of American legislators who had been to Greenland for some time.

Robert Treat Payne – entered Harvard at age 14, graduated in 1749, just as his father went broke. He spent a year working as a teacher, and by 1750 went to sea – where he reached Greenland, Europe and the southern colonies. He decided a sailor’s life was not for him, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1757. I cannot connect Payne with any efforts to bring Greenland into the United States – though I can show a convoluted connection with an attempt to claim Tasmania for France. (The connection is there, but no argument that convinces me Payne was involved in the untimely attempt) In 1770, he was one of the prosecutors in the Boston Massacre case.

If you look at Paine’s biography, it seems obvious that he favored independence for the United States . . . and equally obvious that he didn’t want to return to the sea or to Greenland.