Overview
- The Fraunces Tavern Museum hosts a 250th‑anniversary program on January 10 at 12:30 p.m. featuring selected readings, with free tickets for members of partner organizations and standard admission for others.
- Thomas Paine published the 47‑page Common Sense on January 10, 1776 at Third and Walnut in Philadelphia, arguing plainly for independence and influencing the Declaration of Independence.
- Historians describe wide popular exposure through sales and readings in homes and taverns, though circulation estimates range from tens of thousands to claims exceeding 500,000.
- Fraunces Tavern provides a symbolic setting because colonists shared pamphlets in such venues, and Paine visited the site for George Washington’s 1783 farewell to his troops.
- Paine, an English-born writer who followed Benjamin Franklin to Philadelphia and wrote for Pennsylvania Magazine, later denounced Christianity and died in poverty in New York in 1809.