Ephraim Paine

Ephraim Paine (August 19, 1730–August 10, 1785) was an American physician and political leader from Dutchess County, New York. He was a delegate for New York to the Continental Congress in 1784.

Ephraim was born in 1730 at Canterbury, Connecticut, but moved with his parents to Dutchess County, New York soon after. He studied medicine, and opened a practice in Amenia.

Politically, Paine was viewed as a radical of the left, usually at odds with the landed conservative forces in New York. He built a base of support in Dutchess county with small farmers and merchants. He was a primitive or evangelical Christian firmly against an aristocracy, and served as a lay preacher in Baptist meetings. His neighbors sent him to the New York Provincial Congress in 1775, and elected him to the state senate in 1780.

Paine's radicalism got him expelled by the senate in March of 1781. In the senate, Alexander Hamilton described him as "a man of strong prejudices; his zeal is fiery, his obstinancy unconquerable." He was quickly returned again by election, and remained until 1785. In 1784 he was absent for part of the year to attend the Continental Congress sessions in Annapolis, Maryland. Though he supported statehood for Vermont, he didn't expect this to be resolved by the Congress anytime soon.

Paine died at home in Amenia in 1785, and is buried at the "Red Meeting House Cemetery" nearby.

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