For younger readers, or those just coming to this material for the first time, it might be worth mentioning that not all the colonists, by a long shot, were in favor of independence from Great Britain. Those who refused to swear allegiance to the newly self-declared country, and who wished to remain subjects of George III, were broadly termed Loyalists, or, as they were known in the thirteen former colonies, Tories.
One such person – in our family – was Dr. William Paine. Like another of our ancestors, Col. Timothy Bigelow, William Paine was both a natural-born citizen of Worcester, Massachusetts, and a former pupil of John Adams, the patriot and future U.S. president.
As a young adult, Paine travelled to Scotland to study medicine, became a physician, actually met George III, and in the course of the war, after following his conscience and enlisting in the British military, rose up to eventually become “Surgeon-General of the King’s Forces in America.”
William Paine, M.D.
(I actually had to pause to let that sink in when I first read it. Surgeon-General of the King’s Forces in America. I almost want to laugh, not out of disrespect, but out of amazement.)
At any rate, after the war, Paine was granted land in Canada, and lived there for a time, before returning to his homeland, where he was in due course naturalized – or, renaturalized? – as a U.S. citizen.
Before I leave off, a brief word of thanks to my cousin, Elisha F. Lee, who suggested this man might be worth mentioning, and who kindly put me on to the two biographical sketches you will find below.
I’ve also included, as a bulleted list, some other sources from around the web. They’re well worth exploring, and perhaps at some point, I’ll reproduce them – with permission – here.
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