Robert Treat Paine (March 11, 1731 – May 11, 1814) was a lawyer, politician and Founding Father of the United States who signed the Continental Association and Declaration of Independence as a representative of Massachusetts.

Robert Treat Paine was born in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, in British America, on March 11, 1731.

[1] His father was pastor of Franklin Road Baptist Church in Weymouth but moved his family to Boston in 1730 and subsequently became a merchant there.

Paine also attempted a merchant career, with journeys to the Carolinas, the Azores, and Spain as well as a whaling voyage to Greenland.

Paine, along with the Solicitor General of Massachusetts Samuel Quincy, conducted the prosecution of Captain Thomas Preston and eight soldiers under his command following the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770.

In that Congress, he signed the final appeal to the king (the Olive Branch Petition of 1775) and helped frame the rules of debate and acquire gunpowder for the coming war, and in 1776 was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

[9] Many of his papers, including correspondence and legal notes, are now held by the Massachusetts Historical Society.