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TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS
NATHAN HALE
BY
JEAN CHRISTIE ROOT
"O Beautiful! my Country! ...,
What were our lives without thee?
What all our lives to save thee?
We reck not what we gave thee;
We will not dare to doubt thee,
But ask whatever else, and we will dare!"
_Commemoration Ode_,
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
Cleveland, O. New York, N. Y.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1915. Reprinted
August, 1925; March, 1929.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
NATHAN HALE'S EARLY YEARS 1
CHAPTER II
COLLEGE DAYS 12
CHAPTER III
A CALL TO TEACH 29
CHAPTER IV
A CALL TO ARMS 44
CHAPTER V
HALE'S ZEAL AS A SOLDIER 60
CHAPTER VI
A PERILOUS SERVICE 71
CHAPTER VII
GRIEF FOR THE YOUNG PATRIOT 91
CHAPTER VIII
TRIBUTES TO NATHAN HALE 103
CHAPTER IX
NATHAN HALE'S FRIENDS 114
THE REV. JOSEPH HUNTINGTON, D.D. 114
ALICE ADAMS 118
BENJAMIN TALLMADGE 125
WILLIAM HULL 129
STEPHEN HEMPSTEAD 133
ASHER WRIGHT 136
ELISHA BOSTWICK 137
EDWARD EVERETT HALE 140
CHAPTER X
ANCESTORS AND DESCENDANTS OF NATHAN HALE'S
PARENTS 143
CHAPTER XI
ASSERTED BETRAYAL OF NATHAN HALE 147
CHAPTER XII
CONTRASTS BETWEEN HALE AND ANDRE 152
CHAPTER I
NATHAN HALE'S EARLY YEARS
It is to-day a recognized fact that no life worthy of our reverence, or
even a life calculated to awaken our fear, is the result of accident.
Whatever may be the character, its basis has been the result of
long-developing causes. This the life of Nathan Hale well illustrates.
He was born at a time and under influences that were sure to develop the
best qualities in him. He was an immediate descendant of the best of the
Puritans on both sides of the sea. His great-grandfather, John Hale, was
the son of Robert Hale, who came to America in 1632. John Hale graduated
from Harvard in 1657 and was the first pastor settled in Beverly,
Massachusetts, remaining there until he died, an aged man. An ardent
patriot, this John Hale, in 1676, gave about one-twelfth of his salary,
some seventy pounds, for defense in King Philip's War. When need arose
in the French War, he went to Canada as a volunteer, for a threefold
purpose,--so that he might accompany a number of his own parishioners,
act as chaplain for one of the regiments, and fight when his aid was
needed.
Living during the witchcraft trials, he was one of the first to be
convinced of the mistaken course pursued. We are not certain as to his
approval or disapproval of the progress of the excitement in regard to
witchcraft until it became intensely personal to his own family. His
wife was, fortunately as the results proved, accused by some misguided
person of being a witch. The well-known nobility of her life, and her
lovely character, at once convinced all who knew the circumstances that
some terrible mistake had been made by her accuser. And if a mistake had
been made in her case, why not in others? At once the deadly power of
the delusion was broken and, happily, the tide turned back forever.
There was no question after this of the Rev. Mr. Hale's viewpoint as to
witchcraft.
In the very darkest depths of the witchcraft delusion, some
illustrations of splendid courage and noble unselfishness were
exhibited. Grewsome as it is, we cannot forbear quoting the example of
one Giles Cory, condemned to die as a witch, who knew that if he did not
confess he had bewitched people, his estate, which he wished his wife
and family to inherit, would be forfeited, and that he would be pressed
to death instead of being hanged.
Being hanged is a comparatively brief experience, while the other way is
prolonged and agonizing. But, for the sake of his family, brave old
Giles Cory calmly faced this terrible, lingering death. He must have won
from some, if not from all, the feeling that a stout-hearted and
generous man had proved his love for his own as no mere words could have
done.
John Hale appears to have been a worthy ancestor of the youth Nathan
Hale, who, a hundred years later, so freely made a sacrifice of his
life.
John Hale's son, Samuel, was Nathan's grandfather; he made his home in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire. One of Samuel Hale's sons, bearing his own
name, Samuel, was a Harvard man. Another son, Richard, Nathan's father,
born February 28, 1717, looking about to find the best farming lands for
the support of a future family, moved to Connecticut, and became a
farmer in South Coventry, thirty miles east of Hartford. Distinguished
from the beginning for his success in whatever he undertook in business
affairs, and also as a man of singularly upright character, Deacon
Richard Hale won the warmest regard of all who knew him. His advice and
help were sought, both in political and religious affairs, to the full
limit of the time at his command.
His farm was among the best in that section. The house that he first
occupied, probably one already on the place, was as comfortable and
convenient as the usual homes of the earlier colonists. Later a larger
house was built, big enough to accommodate a family of a dozen or more,
and many guests as well. The house in which Nathan lived as a boy is
still standing, and has fortunately come down to us with almost no
mutilation.
Though the forms and the voices of those who dwelt in them have long
since vanished, there still linger about these vacant rooms the most
tender and inspiring memories of the lives once developing there, now
gone forward; nothing wasted or lost, as we will believe, of anything
permanent they strove for or cared for in their dear, earthly home.
To this home Richard Hale, married May 2, 1746, at the age of
twenty-nine, brought his young bride, Elizabeth Strong. If Richard
Hale's pedigree was a good one, his wife, Elizabeth Strong, came from a
family even more finely endowed. The first of her ancestors who came to
America was Elder John Strong. He was one of the founders of
Dorchester, now a part of Boston; later he helped to found Northampton,
Massachusetts.
Mrs. Hale's grandfather, Joseph Strong, represented Coventry for
sixty-five sessions in the General Assembly of Connecticut, and when he
was ninety years of age he presided over the town meeting, suggesting by
that deed a man of some vigor, for town meetings were no playdays in
those early years. His descendants, active in whatever their hands found
to do,--in the ministry, the law, business, or politics,--were long
prominent in New England and New York, and doubtless many are to-day
still helping to mold their country's future.
The son of this Justice Joseph Strong was also named Joseph, and called
Captain Joseph Strong. In 1724 he married his second cousin, Elizabeth
Strong. He, too, was a noted man among the colonists. She, later, became
the "grandmother" to whom Nathan so warmly alludes in one of his last
letters to his brother. Captain Joseph Strong and his wife were the
parents of Elizabeth Strong who, in her nineteenth year, married Richard
Hale.
To Elizabeth Strong Hale we can give but a passing notice. There is not,
it is believed, one word that she wrote now in existence, nor any record
left of that gracious womanhood, save a name on an obscure gravestone.
But what brave-hearted mother would not count it well worth while to
leave, for the coming years, the impress she left upon her many
children; one of them alone destined to carry to coming generations of
Americans the assurance that such a son could only have been borne by
one of the noblest of mothers. Dying at the age of forty,--April 21,
1767,--after a married life of twenty-one years, she had performed all
the duties then expected from the mistress of a farmer's household in a
section where the principal help that could be secured in any time of
need came from the voluntary kindnesses of neighbors; for, like one
large family, they felt it necessary to "lend a hand" whenever any one
of their number was in need. Mrs. Hale had been the mother of twelve
children when she died. Two of her children, named David and Jonathan,
were twins. One of the twins, Jonathan, died when only a week old. David
lived to be graduated from Yale and to become a minister at Lisbon,
Connecticut. A little daughter, Susanna, lived but a month, but ten of
Mrs. Hale's twelve children grew to maturity.
Nathan, the sixth child, born June 6, 1755, was the first of the ten to
die, leaving to his surviving brothers and sisters a memory that in
later years must have been an unfailing inspiration. He was delicate at
first, but owing to his mother's care he later became as robust in body
as he was in mind. For an older brother, Enoch, the plan was formed of
sending him to college to prepare for the ministry, a custom then
prevalent among many of the large and prosperous families in New
England. Nathan was at first destined for a business life; but because
of the urgent desire of his mother, heartily seconded by that of his
Grandmother Strong, he was allowed to enter college with his brother
Enoch in 1769, when he was fourteen years old; this was two years after
the death of his mother. Four of Mrs. Hale's immediate relatives were
graduates of Yale,--a fine illustration of the value those progressive
pioneers attached to education.
As a boy Nathan was to his mother what he later became to all who knew
him; and the bond between such a mother and such a son must have been
very tender and strong. It is a comfort to those who know what such
mothers desire for their children, to remember the gladness and hope
with which this mother, overworked and dying long before her time,
looked forward to the days coming to her children. For Nathan, through
her influence, was to become one of Yale's noblest sons.
As Nathan's mother died nine years before he did, we understand the full
meaning of the line in Judge Finch's poem,
"The sad of Earth, the glad of Heaven,"
written many years later in honoring Nathan's splendid sacrifice. The
poem to which the line belongs, read more than sixty years ago on the
one-hundredth anniversary of the Linonian Society, an organization of
Yale College of which Nathan Hale had been an early and an active
member, had much influence in rousing first Yale men, and then other
patriotic Americans, to recognize Nathan Hale as one of America's
bravest martyrs.
Mrs. Hale died in 1767. About two years later Deacon Hale married again,
bringing to his home this time a widow, Mrs. Abigail Adams, of
Canterbury, who must have been well fitted to take her place as the new
head of the family. No ignoble mother could rear such children as she
had reared, and Deacon Hale's second choice of a wife proved a wise and
happy one. Providence appears to have smiled upon him when he opened his
doors and invited Mrs. Adams and her children to share his home, and
even the affection of some of his sons. It is said that two of Deacon
Hale's sons fell in love with her youngest daughter, Alice Adams, who,
at Deacon Hale's desire, came to live permanently in the family in 1770
or 1771, while his second son, John, married her eldest daughter, Sarah
Adams, on December 19, 1770.
The lives of both these women, Sarah and Alice Adams, are sufficient
witnesses to the high character of the new mother added to the Hale
household. To several of his biographers it has seemed quite probable
that Nathan Hale wrote one of his last two letters to this mother. We
grant that it may have been addressed to her, while intended for the
reading of another. Of this, later.
In regard to the marriage of John Hale and Sarah Adams it may be as well
to state here that, after a married life of thirty-one years, John Hale
died suddenly in December, 1802, his health probably undermined by his
service in the Revolutionary War, where he held the rank of major. His
widow, desiring to carry out what she believed would have been his
wishes, "bequeathed L1000 to trustees as a fund, the income of which was
to be used for the support of young men preparing for missionary
service,"--probably among the Indians, as this was before the support of
foreign missions was undertaken in America--"and in part for founding
and supporting the Hale Library in Coventry, to be used by the ministers
of Coventry and the neighboring towns." Included in the bequest for
founding the still existing so-called "Hale Donation" was a portrait of
the donor's husband, Major John Hale;--well painted, for the period, and
now of great interest. Mrs. John Hale died a few months after her
husband. It is easy to believe that, though born of different parents,
the Hale and Adams families were congenial mentally and morally, and
that Deacon Richard Hale was a wise and fortunate man in his choice of a
second mother for his children.
According to his mother's and grandmother's wishes, it was early decided
that Nathan should be prepared to enter college. After the fashion of
those times, he and two of his brothers began their preparatory studies
under the direction of the Rev. Joseph Huntington, D.D., then pastor of
the church in Nathan's native town. He is said to have been a man noted
for his intellectual power, for his patriotism, and for his courteous
manners.
It may be well to say here that, in those early days, the New England
ministers usually settled in one pastorate for life, and they were not
only teachers in spiritual things, but were noted for their courteous
and dignified manners; so that even before he entered college Nathan
Hale must have had ample opportunities for the cultivation of the easy
manners and courteous deportment which are said by all who knew him to
have been so marked in him.
Nathan Hale, as a boy, had one more asset that must have helped to
insure his future success, and that did, as we believe, help him to die
nobly. He was not overindulged; he had always the spur of effort to urge
him forward. It was told of him, many years after his death, by the
woman he had loved and who had known him well all his later years, Mrs.
Alice Adams Lawrence, that whatever he did, even as boy, he did with all
his heart, as if it engrossed his whole mind. Whether it was work, or
study, or play, he gave all his energies to the doing of it. Such a
disposition, together with his fine home training, must have helped to
insure his success in Yale.