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.