ANCESTORS AND DESCENDANTS OF NATHAN HALE'S PARENTS
Robert Hale arrived in Massachusetts in 1632. He was one of those sent
from the first church in Boston to form the first church in Charlestown
in 1632, and was a deacon of this church. He was a blacksmith by trade.
He also had a gift for practical mathematics, being regularly employed
by the General Court of Massachusetts as a surveyor of new plantations.
His son John, of whom mention has been made in connection with the
witchcraft delusion, was a graduate of Harvard in 1657. Samuel, the
fourth son of John, was the father of Richard, father of Nathan Hale.
Elizabeth Strong, wife of Deacon Richard Hale and mother of Nathan, came
from a family more notable than that of her husband. Her grandfather,
Joseph Strong, represented Coventry in the General Assembly of
Connecticut for sixty-five sessions and presided over town-meeting in
his ninetieth year.
Mrs. Hale had four immediate relatives who were graduates of Yale
college. Three of the sons of Deacon Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong
Hale graduated from Yale,--Enoch, the fourth son, Nathan, the sixth
child, and David, the eighth son. Three of the sons were officers in the
Revolutionary army, and the husband of a daughter was a surgeon there.
John was a major; Joseph, who died as the result of the privations
endured there, was a lieutenant; and Nathan was a captain. Elizabeth,
daughter of Joseph, married Rev. Abiel Abbot, for many years minister in
Coventry. Three of their sons were college graduates--two of Yale and
one of Dartmouth. Rebekah, another daughter of Joseph, married Ezra
Abbot of Wilton, N.H. Three sons were graduates of Bowdoin. One son, the
Rev. Abiel Abbot, was settled in East Wilton.
Two daughters also married clergymen. Another daughter of Joseph, Mary,
married the Rev. Levi Nelson. For a man who died at the age of
thirty-four, Lieutenant Joseph Hale appears to have been well
represented by his descendants.
Surgeon Rose of the Revolutionary army, and Elizabeth Hale, daughter of
Deacon Richard Hale, were the grandparents of the distinguished lawyer
and statesman, Washington Hunt, and of Lieutenant Edward Hunt, U.S.A.,
first husband of the celebrated author, Helen Hunt.
Enoch Hale, Deacon Richard Hale's fourth son, graduated in the same
class with his brother Nathan, became a minister, and spent a long life
in his first and only pastorate. One of his sons, Enoch, was educated at
Yale and Harvard and became a noted physician. A son, Nathan, was a
graduate of Williams College, and editor of the _Boston Advertiser_ for
more than forty years. His son Nathan, a Harvard man, became coeditor
with him. One of Enoch's granddaughters married a minister named
Montague.
David, another son of Deacon Richard Hale, graduated at Yale, and was
settled in the ministry at Lisbon, Connecticut. Joanna, the second
daughter of Richard Hale, married Dr. Nathan Howard.
One of Enoch Hale's grandsons was president of the Continental Bank in
New York City. The most noted of Enoch Hale's descendants was the Rev.
Edward Everett Hale, clergyman, editor, and author, and a graduate of
Harvard. The writer, Lucretia Peabody Hale, was one of Enoch Hale's
grandchildren. David Hale, a grandson of Richard Hale, was long in
control of the _Journal of Commerce_ in New York City and noted for his
charities. Alexander and Charles, grandsons of Enoch, were graduates of
Harvard.
As this list of college graduates and professional men is not extended
beyond the year 1850, a little past the limit of a century after the
marriage of Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong, one is inclined to wonder
whether any other farmer's family within that, or any other, period in
American history, can show a more remarkable record.
One is impressed, too, most profoundly, by the realization that,
although Elizabeth Strong Hale died so early, as lives are now
measured,--she was only forty,--to few women in any land who have
reached the appointed limit of human life have been given the remarkable
power of leaving to so many descendants such warmth of feeling and such
nobility of nature as passed through that century of her descendants.