Robert Treat Paine

Robert Treat Paine was born in Boston in 1731, graduated from Harvard, and studied law after first considering the ministry. In 1770 he was a prosecutor in the Boston Massacre trials, while John Adams served as counsel for the British soldiers; the two men differed in that courtroom but later sat together in Congress. Paine signed the Declaration of Independence for Massachusetts and also signed the Articles of Confederation. After the war he became the first attorney general of Massachusetts and then a justice of the state supreme court, where he served until 1804. He had a serious interest in science and in the organization of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He died in Boston in 1814.

See also: Signers of the Declaration · John Hancock · Samuel Adams · John Adams · Elbridge Gerry