6/23/2012 3:12:52 PM
Granary Burying Ground
Robert Treat Paine was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He graduated from Harvard College in 1749 and eventually became a lawyer. He was admitted to the law bar in 1757. Along with John Quincy, he prosecuted Captain Thomas Preston and the soldiers who were involved in the Boston Massacre. John Adams defended the men and most were found not guilty. Paine eventually became speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and a member of the committee that drafted the Constitution of the United States. He also served as Massachusetts Attorney General from 1770 to 1790. Finally, he was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court where he retired in 1804.
Robert Treat Paine (March 11, 1731 – May 11, 1814) was a Massachusetts lawyer and politician, best known as a signer of the Declaration of Independence as a representative of Massachusetts. He served as the state's first attorney general, and served as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court.