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Paine, Charles J. (1853-1916) USA

Category: OWNERS

ChPaineVCharles Jackson Paine (August 26, 1833 – August 12, 1916) was an American railroad executive, soldier, and yachtsman who was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Paine was born August 26, 1833 in Boston, Massachusetts, son of Charles Cushing Paine and Fannie Cabot Jackson, and great-grandson of Robert Treat Paine, one of the signers of the United States Declaration of Independence.

GenPaineSHis brother, Sumner Edward Jackson Paine, was a 2nd Lieutenant in Company A, 20th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and was killed during the repulse of Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Paine graduated at Harvard in 1853 and made a considerable fortune in railroad enterprises. His interest in boats began at a young age, and in 1852, while enrolled at Harvard University, his rowing team beat Yale in what is thought to be the first intercollegiate athletic event ever held in the United States.

Ten years later, he volunteered for service in the Civil War, and received a commission as a captain in the Massachusetts Infantry. He rose rapidly through the ranks, serving as colonel on the staff of General Benjamin F. Butler (later an owner of the schooner America,) and played a key role in the capture of Port Hudson.

JuliaPaine.jpgAs a brigadier general, he commanded a black volunteer division that boasted 14 medals of honor in the 1864 Richmond campaign. Major General Paine returned to Boston a hero, after distinguishing himself at the capture of Fort Fisher.

In 1867, he married Julia Bryant, a cousin of George L. Schuyler, a member of the original America syndicate and author of the America's Cup Deed of Gift. This cemented Paine's ties to the America's Cup. By the early 1880s, the family had grown to five children: Sumner (1868-1904), John Bryant (1870-1951), Mary Anna Lee “Molly” (1873-1967), Charles Jackson Jr. (1876-1926), and Helen (1881-1947). Two later additions, Georgina (1888-1989) and Frank Cabot (1890-1952), arrived by 1890. The large family was a challenge enjoyed by Julia Paine.

Sumner&JohnPaineHis career as a yachtsman started in 1877 when he bought the schooner Zephyr, which he soon sold and two years later bought the schooner Halcyon, which was notoriously a slow boat.

General Charles Paine, who led three successful America's Cup defense efforts for New York Yacht Club, once had a quarter of an inch planed from a boat's deck to lighten the vessel by several hundred pounds. It was acts such as these that gained him the reputation for his devoted attention to small details in his quest for speed.

Smoothing hulls and installing rigging safety devices — even inventing a special batten to prevent the leach of the mainsail from becoming too flat — were all part of his repertoire for making a sailboat as fast as possible. Sailboat designer Edward Burgess, who named one of his sons after Paine, claimed that a number of changes in his own America's Cup-winning designs came from Paine's suggestions.00518S

His intuitive feel for boosting performance was rivaled only by his uncommon management ability. In 1885, General Paine, a member of NYYC, managed what became known as the first modern America's Cup defense syndicate. With J. Malcolm Forbes paying most of the bills, and Edward Burgess as the designer, the syndicate produced Puritan, and created a template for America's Cup campaign management that remains the standard today.

Puritan, with topsides rubbed down to glassy smoothness at Paine's request, defeated Great Britain's Genesta to become first the Boston-bred Cup defender. Paine "thought out the effect of every line and every detail of construction and rig, and directed all so as to secure him the possession of the fastest yacht in the world. … I have simply been his executive officer," Burgess said later.

Paine's partnership with Burgess ultimately produced three America's Cup defenders in as many years. In deference to Massachusetts history, he christened the second boat Mayflower, which defeated Britain's Galatea in 1886. 01096SPaine's family included a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the author of the song "Adams and Liberty."

The third boat bore the name Volunteer, in remembrance of Paine's service in the Civil War. Volunteer was a superior yacht in every way, defending against Britain's Thistle. After the race, the city of Boston honored Paine and Burgess with a testimonial celebration at Faneuil Hall.

General Paine made one more bid for the honor of defending the America Cup. Lord Dunraven challenged six years after the previous race with Thistle ll. and a number of defenders were built. Stewart and Burney designed the Pilgrim for a Boston syndicate, the Vigilant and Colonia were built for New York syndicates by Herreshoff, and General Paine staked his hopes on the Jubilee, designed by his son John B. Paine. In the elimination races, the Vigilant defeated the Jubilee and after that, General Paine gradually withdrew from yachting.ChPaineS

Julia Bryant Paine died unexpectedly in 1901 at age 54, a blow from which the general never recovered.

General Charles J. Paine died on August 12, 1916, at his Summer home in Weston, Mass. in his eighty-fourth year. His estate, valued at nearly nine million dollars, was placed in trust for his descendants. He would be one of the charter members of The Country Club (Brookline, Massachusetts), the prototype of country clubs everywhere, and built one of the first golf courses in North America in Weston, Massachusetts. Paine helped finance the founding of Middlesex School (Concord, Massachusetts), of which his son-in-law Frederick Winsor was the founder and first headmaster. Paine's interest in sports continued into the next generation: two of his sons, John B. and Sumner, won pistol-shooting events at the first modern Olympic Games (Athens 1896). John B. and Franck Cabot also participated in the America's Cup by drawing respectively JUBILEE (1893) and YANKEE (1930).

 

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