John Howard Payne was born in New York City on June 9, 1791, one of seven sons among nine children. Early in his childhood, the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where his father headed a school. The family also spent time at his grandfather's colonial-era house in East Hampton, New York, which was later preserved in honor of Payne. As a youth, Payne showed precocious dramatic talent, but his father tried to discourage that path. After the death of an older son, his father installed young Payne, age 13, in his late brother's position at the same accountants' firm in New York, but Payne showed he had no mind for commerce.