Thomas Paine: The Fallen Father of the Revolution

There were six at his funeral. Seven, if you count the man asleep in the chair. Eight, if you count the writer of this account, who followed at a distance and said nothing. It was June 1809. Hot, sluggish. The road out of Harlem ran quiet, except for the clattering wheels and the low talk of the procession: a couple of Black men, six drunken Irishmen in a carriage, a Quaker on horseback, and a coffin headed for West Chester. No procession in New York ever looked more like a mistake........