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 £1000 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.