Henry Warren Paine was born on August 30, 1810 in Winslows, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Lemuel and Jane Thomson (Warren) Paine and a descendant of William Paine who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1635. His mother was a niece of General Joseph Warren. In childhood and youth he was noted for his abstention from the usual recreations.
Education
In 1826 Paine entered Waterville (now Colby) College, Waterville, Maine and graduated in 1830. He continued for another year as tutor. Following his father into the legal profession, he studied first in the office of his uncle, Samuel S. Warren of China, Maine, and then took a year's course at the Harvard Law School (1832 - 1833). In 1834 Henry Warren Paine was admitted to the bar of Kennebec County, Maine.
Career
About 1834 Paine began his law practice at Hallowell. The following year he was elected to the state legislature, where he served through the 1837 session and also in 1853. From 1834 to 1839 he was the attorney for Kennebec County, and also became conspicuously successful in private practice. His growing reputation led him eventually into a larger field and in 1854 he established himself in Boston, where for over a quarter of a century he was a recognized leader of a distinguished bar. He was particularly effective before juries; but fair and courteous to his opponents. His professional income was large but he was careless in collecting fees and it was estimated that he gave away $100, 000.
A Democrat, even during the Civil War, he reluctantly consented to become his party's candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 1863 and again in 1864, but, of course, without hope of success. He is said to have been offered a seat in the United States Senate from Maine in 1853, and also one on the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts in 1867. From 1872 to 1885 he lectured on real property law at the Boston University Law School, with the great popularity of which his own personality had much to do. Failing health and hearing, due to overwork and lack of recreation, caused him to give up teaching as well as practice, and his last decade was passed in virtual retirement.
During the last two years of his life he was unable to recognize his friends, and he had "discovered at last that, big as were his ancestors' deposits of vigor and vitality to his credit, he had overdrawn his account for years, and must now repay the excess with compound interest. " His career well illustrates the ephemeral nature of the advocate's fame. Efforts in forensic oratory, however effective, are rarely preserved, and records of professional triumphs are too often buried forever in the archives of the courts.
Achievements
Politics
Henry Warren Paine was a member of Democratic party.
Personality
Henry Warren Paine had a remarkable memory and was noted for his use of literary allusion and his aptness of repartee.
Interests
Paine inherited from his father a taste for literature.
Connections
On May 1, 1837, Henry Warren Paine was married to Lucy E. Coffin of Newburyport, Massachussets, and one daughter was born to them.