New Rochelle · US

Thomas Paine Cottage Museum. Huguenot & New Rochelle Historical Assn. headquarters

On a quiet corner in New Rochelle, just north of New York City, stands the last surviving building in America that the radical pamphleteer Thomas Paine actually owned. This modest shingled saltbox was his home from 1802 to 1806, set on the 277-acre farm the State of New York gave him in 1784 to thank him for helping spark independence with Common Sense. Today, preserved and run by the Huguenot & New Rochelle Historical Association, the Thomas Paine Cottage Museum lets visitors step inside the rooms where the author of "These are the times that try men's souls" spent his final American years. The cottage is a rare, intimate kind of landmark: a National Historic Landmark house museum whose exhibits connect the story of a Founding Father to the wider tale of New Rochelle itself, from its Siwanoy roots and 1688 Huguenot founding to the age of the Revolution. Guided tours wind through two floors of period rooms and collections, while the grounds still hold Paine's gravesite, a 19th-century monument, and a one-room schoolhouse, making this a compact and rewarding stop for anyone interested in how the new nation really looked on the ground.