Aman Ali has a story up on the Thomas Paine MueseumThomas Paine Museum in New Rochelle hands off its contents to New York Historical Society in Manhattan

The Journal News article says that the interim executive director of the board of the Thomas Paine National Historical Association is disputing claims by former board member Ken Burchell that the Attorney General's office stepped in ordered the museum's collection transferred to the New York State Historical Society. Interim director Brad Mulkern did acknowledge the museum's collection has been transferred to the New York State Historical Society but claims it was a decision of the board.

At least one part of the Journal News story appears to be wrong:

Many of the board's members were upset by the sales and resigned in 2002, including Kenneth Burchell. He was one of the people who brought the sales to the attorney general's attention. He said dealing with people like McCartin on the board was "like dealing with gangsters."

Sources tell Talk of the Sound that most of the board resigned between 2001 and 2002, several years before learning that former TPNHA executive director Brian McCartin sold off parts of the museum's collection.

Little of the current board's story makes sense. They now say that the collection was transferred to the New York State Historical Society because the museum could not properly care for the collection, they say that the facility in New Rochelle was not "museum quality" but that they sold off parts of the collection to raise money to fix up the museum. It would seem to me that if the plan was to sell of parts of the collection to private collectors to raise money to fix up the museum you would have only made the sale if the money raised would be sufficient to put the facility into "museum-quality" shape. As Brian McCartin used the museum as his personal residence for many years, it seems just as likely that the purpose of selling of parts of the collection was to fix up his residence for his benefit not fix up the museum so it could properly house the collection.