Video: Explaining the colorful career of a too little known Founding Father

Portrait of Robert Treat Paine, by Edward Savage and John Coles, Jr.

— Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

A descendent, Thomas M. Paine, tells us the riveting story of American Founding Father/signer of The Declaration of Independence, lawyer, prosecutor, judge, politician and science-and-technology enthusiast {hit this link for video} Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814). (He had a special interest in gunpowder and fireworks and in clocks. )

In legal and government settings, the courageous and eloquent Paine was known for the frequency of his objections.

Statue of Robert Treat Paine, by Richard E. Brooks (1904), in Taunton, Mass., where Paine was mostly based in 1761-1780.