On the site of the house where Thomas Paine died.] But that came later.

Before leaving England, in addition to his other and varied occupations, he ran a "tobacco mill," and was twice married.

One wife died, and from the other he was separated.

At all events, at thirty-seven, alone and friendless, with empty pockets and a letter from Benjamin Franklin as his sole asset, he set sail for America in the year 1774.
Of course he went to the Quaker City, and speedily became the editor of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_, through the pages of which he cried a new message of liberty and justice to the troubled Colonies.

He, an Englishman, urged America to break away from England; he, of Quaker birth and by heredity and training opposed to fighting, advocated the most stringent steps for the consummation of national freedom.