USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > New Haven, a book recording the varied activities of the author in his efforts over many years to promote the welfare of the city of his adoption since 1883, together with some researches into its storied past and many illustrations > Part 40
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Preserved with the sketch in the archives of the University are Col. Ebenezer Baldwin's letter of August 8, 1832, trans-
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mitting the relic as agent for Mr. Tomlinson and Mr. Beers, and also President Day's acknowledgment of it. Colonel Baldwin (Yale 1808) said in part :
"It is the likeness of Major Andre, seated at a table in his guard room, drawn by himself with a pen, on the morning of the day fixed for his execution. Mr. Tomlinson informs me that a respite was granted until the next day, and that this miniature was in the meantime presented to him (then acting as officer of the guard), by Major Andre himself. Mr. Tomlinson was present when the sketch was made, and says it was drawn without the aid of a glass.
"The sketch subsequently passed into the hands of Deacon Beers, a fellow officer of Mr. Tomlinson on the station, and from thence was trans- ferred to me. It has been in my possession several years."
President Day's acknowledgment, dated August 10, 1832, refers to the relic as "A memorial to one whose melancholy fate has long been contemplated with tender emotion."
It is rather curious that neither Col. Baldwin nor President Day made any reference in their letters to Hale, whose memory seems to have been neglected and forgotten by his Alma Mater (he was graduated in 1773), while that of Andre was being cherished in this relic. Why Andre's fate was provocative of such an outpouring of sentiment everywhere, while Hale's was so long ignored (even at his Alma Mater), is not clear and not creditable to the American people. Dr. Munger's explana- tion in his sermon on Hale, preached in June, 1898, is some- what consolatory, but not wholly satisfactory, since Hale was widely known and had many friends of influence and perished in an effort to assist Washington himself in the darkest hour of the War of Independence. Dr. Munger said of Hale and Andre :
"He [Hale] has been singularly overlooked, chiefly because nothing came of his brave effort; it did not enter into the web of events; it had no relation to what went before or what followed after; it was pure failure in the eye of history. The beauty and nobility and sacrificial grandeur of it have not yet been appreciated. .... Sympathy and sentiment have passed him by and fastened on Andre-the British spy who was executed four years later. Andre fills pages of history of necessity, because history turned on his action. Thrown into prominence, pity and sentiment have made a hero and almost a martyr of him. Comparison between Hale and
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Andre is idle and unkind, but if made, it vanishes in the light of their motive and their character. Comparison is impossible."
This is penetrating criticism, but it does not excuse Hale's neglect in the house of his friends. Dr. Munger did not so intend it. Forty years after his death, Andre had a monument in Westminster Abbey,-consecrated to the greatest figures in England's history. Hale had to wait until 1925, a century and a half lacking a year, for his national memorial,-a place on a postage stamp,-and that won by importunity and the good offices of a sympathetic Postmaster-General.
After this long digression, let us return to Andre's sketch. The account of Deacon Beers, given in Atwater's "History of the City of New Haven" (1887), claims that Andre gave the sketch direct to Beers, Tomlinson's name not being men- tioned. Beers, in his last years (he lived to be ninety-four), lost his hearing but not his smelling, and so, when the Gover- nor's Guards, at the close of a day of parade, went to his residence to salute the old warrior, he said, "Boys, I thank you for the honor you pay me, and while I am too deaf to hear your guns, I must say your powder smells good!"
LIV.
PRESIDENT COOLIDGE'S TRIBUTE TO HALE.
"THE WHITE HOUSE, "WASHINGTON, "September 20, 1926.
"MY DEAR MR. SEYMOUR :-
"I am glad to know of the exercises to be held in Coventry, Conn., in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the heroic end of Nathan Hale.
"There is no finer record of high character and patriotic devotion, of unselfish service and of a spirit unquenched and majestic in death than that of Nathan Hale. If human con- duct is influenced by the example of those gone before-if inspiration for better things comes from the study of a worthy and noble nature, we cannot lay too much emphasis upon the life and death of this outstanding figure in our Revolutionary history.
"We read of the careful training given by his God-fearing and sturdy parents on the Coventry farm. We know how deeply religious he was, how he comforted the stricken soldiers in his company by prayer and the reading of the Bible. In any analysis of Nathan Hale, one must take account of his strong faith in the power that guides our destinies.
"Prospective glory and fame have been powerful incentives to action and always will be. History has sung the praises of those who have died in battle, acting under orders and sustained by excitement and the cooperation of their fellows. But, Nathan Hale, in time of great crisis for our new nation, volunteered for a dangerous, a solitary and what by many was considered an ignominious mission. A brother officer urged against it, pointing out that capture and death as a spy
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were almost certain to follow. Hale replied he was well aware of the character of his undertaking and of the perils involved. The declaration of motives he then made I wish might be burned into the minds of every citizen of our land. With simple dignity and earnestness this young officer said :
" 'I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claims to perform that service are imperious.'
"Can anything be finer than this? No thought of glory or reward of any nature, just a desire 'to be useful,' to do what- ever country dictated, to go wherever duty led. Many are moved by desire for power; others seek the acclaim of the multitude. What is needed to-day is a better realization of the majesty of service in the less spectacular, and it may be the unpleasant and obscure duties in life.
"Nathan Hale knew what an almost impossible task it would be to get information of the forces and plans of General Howe and to carry it out of the English lines to General Washington. The young schoolmaster, on entering the Continental army more than a year before, is reported to have quoted in the original Latin to a Yale friend in New Haven the phrase: 'It is sweet and fitting to die for our country.' The sudden call to face peril and death probably was far removed from his early dreams. But, there was not a second's hesitation-not a trace of flinching. ‘I wish to be useful,' he said, as he accepted the difficult task.
"How wonderful if every one could be brought to realize the nobility of unselfish service in the things that 'need' to be done-whether the doing offers attractive rewards or holds out only a prospect of failure and contumely, possibly of what might be considered an inglorious end. Yet, did the hanging of that noble spirit, barely three months beyond his twenty- first birthday, mark a failure? Was his execution, among strange and hostile faces, amid unsympathetic and possibly ribald comment, an ignominious death? No! It was a glori-
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ously radiant moment when this young Christian patriot, denied the clergyman and the Bible for which he had asked, having seen his farewell letters to his loved ones torn up by a cruel and brutal provost marshal-so that the 'rebels' should not know that they had a man in their army who could die with such firmness-with his hands tied behind his back as a mark of shame, advanced with bright eyes and firm and steady tread to his fate. It was as if he walked with God. And, his last words: 'I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,' have come down to us as a precious heritage representing the supreme heights of patriotic sacrifice.
"This hero's story should be taught to every child in our schools and his farewell words impressed upon their minds as a true symbol of unselfish and sublime devotion to duty. He did not die in vain.
"We do not need a war to dedicate our energies unselfishly to the public good. It is not necessary to be employed by the government in order to render service to our country. Good citizenship is not a passive state. On every side the citizen may find duties to be performed-not of a striking or appeal- ing nature perhaps, but vitally essential, if we are to preserve the liberties for which Nathan Hale and his associates in the Continental Army fought and died.
"Will you please give my greetings and best wishes to those who will be joining with you on Wednesday evening, in honoring the memory of this national hero.
"Very truly yours
(Signed) CALVIN COOLIDGE."
LV. FOOTSTEPS OF HALE IN NEW HAVEN, 1769-1773.
Along about the first of September, 1769, two boys on horseback rode into New Haven, to enroll as Freshmen in Yale College, already a rival of Harvard. Weary and travel- stained they must have been, after their long journey of sixty- odd miles over the rough roads and bridle paths of that day. These boys were Enoch Hale, aged fifteen, and his next younger brother, Nathan Hale (a name immortal now), aged fourteen, sons of Richard Hale, a prosperous farmer of Coventry, a town remote among the hills of Tolland County, east of the river. The boys had been prepared for college by the minister of the Coventry Church, Rev. Joseph Huntington (1735-1794, Yale College 1762), reputed to have been a good classical scholar, and noted for the urbanity of his manners and his wit. As was the custom of the time, the minister instructed a few boys in his own house, and among them Nathan and Enoch Hale. The house is still standing and tradition asserts that Nathan and Enoch got out their lessons before the great fireplace in the main living-room of the house, which is located about a mile and a half from the Hale farm, where the boys were born and brought up. Their ride to New Haven was, doubtless, their first Great Adventure, and we may imagine how keen they were to see New Haven and Yale College. We may be sure, also, that they were at the time far more concerned with the problem of getting their horses back to Coventry than they were in the furnishing of their quarters in Connecticut Hall, to be their home during the next four years of college life.
Something about their family background will not be amiss here. Deacon Richard Hale, one of the foremost men of
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Coventry, was not a college graduate nor was his father, Samuel Hale, of Newbury, Massachusetts, before him, but his grandfather, the Rev. John Hale ( 1636-1700), was gradu- ated from Harvard in 1657 and was for thirty-seven years settled over the church in Beverly, Massachusetts. The Rev. John Hale was a man of ability and force and distinguished for liberality of mind and public spirit. His second wife (he was to have three consorts), Sarah Noyes, the ancestress of the Hales of Coventry, was a daughter of the Rev. James Noyes (1608-1656). Born in England, the Rev. James was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford. Sarah Noyes' brothers James and Moses, both graduates of Harvard, settled in Stonington and Lyme respectively, and became original trustees of Yale and were very zealous in promoting the welfare of the Collegiate School at New Haven.
The Rev. John Hale's son James (1685-1742) graduated from Harvard in 1703, and was settled over the church in Ashford, Connecticut, having previously been a tutor at Yale. It will thus be seen that Enoch and Nathan Hale had Yale affiliations, though their father was not a Yale man. Their mother, Elizabeth Strong, a native of Coventry, belonged to a family conspicuous in its devotion to public affairs.
I forgot to say that Nathan's uncle, Major Samuel Hale (1718-1807) of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was a Harvard graduate (1740). He served in the Old French War and was an outstanding citizen of Portsmouth, where he kept a famous school, second only to the Boston Latin School. The Rev. John Hale of Beverly also had fighting blood and, against the protest of his congregation, served as one of the chaplains to the unfortunate New England Expedition to Canada in 1690. Nathan's father, Deacon Hale, had no less than six sons in the War of Independence. Three of them responded to the Lexington Alarm. The Deacon himself was an untir- ing patriot throughout the War.
It will thus be seen that Nathan's family background was a background of education and character, recalling Dr.
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Leonard Bacon's statement that the New England race "is sprung of Earth's best blood."
When the two boys reached New Haven in September, 1769, they found a sleepy seaport town of probably less than four hundred houses and a population of less than twenty-five hundred souls. The houses were mostly built of wood, the better painted blue or lead color and the others red. The main settlement was on the harbor's edge. As for the Green -the "Great Square"-it was unkempt, unfenced, disfigured by wagon ruts, weeds and bushes, a place where one encoun- tered geese, swine and cattle. Its chief buildings were the brick State House, finished in 1764, and the "New Brick" meeting-house finished in 1757 and running parallel with what is now Temple Street, with a tower at its north end. Behind it was the ancient burying-ground, crowded and neglected, surrounded by a rude board fence painted red.
Of college buildings, there were three-viz., Connecticut Hall, built 1751-52; the Chapel and Library, built 1761-63, later to be known as the Atheneum; and "Mother Yale," the first of the Yale College buildings, built 1717-1718 and now in 1769 in sad repair. With what curious eyes the boys must have surveyed this shabby structure, 170 feet long, twenty- two feet wide and three stories high, built of wood and painted a "sky color." We read of "1/2 barill of lamb black to color the house," a record made in 1736. Another college building was the President's house, built in 1722 on College Street on what is now the site of the Roger Sherman Theatre. This was a fine house for those days-a house having two cut- stone chimneys rising above a roof of steep pitch with two dormers in front. A wide hallway ran from front to rear between the chimneys. The Presidential cow found pasturage about where Christ Church now stands, as I have read some- where. I dare say Hale was a caller on the Rev. President and his family. His father was soon to build a house of the same type in Coventry.
And now for the boys themselves! How did they look?
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They belonged to "The Age of Homespun" and probably looked it. The writer recalls no account of the personal appearance of Enoch Hale, who was destined to minister to the people of Westhampton, Mass., for fifty-seven years. Edward Everett Hale was his grandson. We can imagine Nathan's appearance as a Freshman from the descriptions of him as he appeared a few years later.
His comrade-at-arms, Lieut. Bostwick of New Milford, says :
"His person I should say was a little above the common stature in height, his shoulders of a moderate breadth, his limbs strait & very plump: regular features-very fair skin-blue eyes-flaxen or very light hair which was always kept short-his eyebrows a shade darker than his hair & his voice rather sharp or piercing-his bodily agility was remarkable I have seen him follow a football & kick it over the tops of the trees in the Bowery at New York, (an exercise which he was fond of)."
In his "Nathan Hale, the Martyr Spy," Stuart says of Nathan :
"He loved the gun and fishing rod . .. He was fond of running, leaping, wrestling, firing at a mark, throwing, lifting, and playing ball. ...
"Nor did Hale while in college forget his athletic sports: the marks of a prodigious leap which he made upon the Green at New Haven were long preserved and pointed out."
When a schoolmaster at New London, he "astonished the natives" by jumping out of one hogshead into another and so on out, through three hogsheads placed in a row. We get the impression that as a Yale undergraduate, Nathan was as much of an outstanding figure among the student body as an athlete and as a student, as was Charles P. Taft, Yale 1918, who personated Hale in the Yale Pageant of 1916. Be that as it may, we get no glimpse of Nathan as an undergraduate until the fall of his Sophomore year, when on Nov. 7, 1770, he was elected to membership in Linonia (a Yale debating society founded in 1753), with several other undergraduates, including his classmates James Hillhouse (1754-1832), Roger Alden (1754-1836), and Thomas Mead (1755-1775), all of
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whom became his close friends and correspondents. His roommate, Isaac Gridley (1754-1836), was also elected to membership in Linonia at that same meeting. From that date forward to and including the "Anniversary Solemnity for the year 1773," the minutes of the society (preserved in the Uni- versity Library) contain the record of sixty-eight meetings and show Hale beyond peradventure as the leading spirit of the fraternity. Many of these entries are in his handwrit- ing. Eight of these sixty-eight meetings were in "Hale's room" as recorded. Whether the reference is to Nathan's room or to Enoch's room is not clear. But as Nathan was by all odds the dominating personality, as between him and his brother, I think we are safe in assuming that Nathan's room is meant. It is significant that the very next meeting after Nathan's election was held in "Hale's room." Out of these sixty-eight meetings, he is recorded as having taken a speaking part in twenty of them. He made his debut in buskins on June 5, 1771, in Dodsley's farce, "The Toy Shop." A revival of this long-forgotten play by one of the Yale fra- ternities of to-day would have peculiar interest from the fact of Hale's having been cast for a part in it one hundred and fifty years ago. In the minutes we read of Hale's "speeches," of his "orations," of his participation in "dialogues," of his entertaining "narrations"; we see him delivering a "valedic- tory oration," we hear him in "dissertations," and in "disputes" and again delivering an "epilogue." The latter was spoken by Hale at the Anniversary Exercises held April 13, 1773. The minutes of that grand occasion are so full and rich that I cannot forbear quoting them with almost no abbreviation :
"April 13, 1773-This day according to appointment the society convened at the dwelling House of Mr. Thomas Atwater, to celebrate the anniversary Solemnity for the Year 1773. The exercises were opened at II o'clock by an elegant Oration, adapted to the Occasion delivered by Wm. Robinson [Hale's classmate and correspondent], this was followed by another Oration spoken by Swift. The Society next proceeded to the election of the necessary Officers for the Ensuing year
"The first part of the Lecture on Heads was then exhibited by Mr.
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Williams [a classmate and correspondent of Hale's], after which we adjourned to the dining room where we found an elegant entertainment prepared. After dinner, as soon as matters could be properly adjusted The New Comedy entitled the West Indian was represented. The Prologue was spoken by Joel Hays. The Actors were .. Both the scenery & Action were on all hands allowed to be Superior to anything of the kind theretofore exhibited on the like Occasion. The whole received peculiar Beauty from the Officers appearing dress'd in Regimentals & the Actresses in full & elegant suits of Ladys' apparel. The last scene was no sooner clos'd than the company testified their satisfaction by the clapping of hands. Between the third & fourth Acts a musical dialogue was sung between Fenn & Johnson in the Characters of Damon & Clora, which met with deserv'd applause. An Epilogue made expressly on the occasion & delivered by Hale 2d was received with approbation. [Italics mine.] The musical Dialogue was then repeated; a humorous Dissertation on Law was delivered by Mills: & at the request of several Gentlemen who were not present at the former part of the Day, the first part of the Lecture on Heads was again exhibited-[We should like to have that matter expounded].
"After a short pause which was enlivened by agreeable Conversation & a Chearful Glass [flavored we fear with Santa Cruz or Jamaica 'Rhum'] a pathetic Valedictory oration was delivered by Mead [a classmate & corre- spondent of Hale's] & answered by Tullar.
"Thus ended the exercises of the Anniversary, no part of which escaped without the Approbation of the Assembly-
"Encomiums on particular parts would at least be needless if not imperti- nent-suffice it to say that the whole was by all present allowed to be superior to anything of the kind they had before seen-
"At 5 o'clock the Assembly walked in procession to the College & there dispersed-
"That Linonia may never want wherewith to make her Anniversaries as agreeable is the wish of every Member & particularly of
"Ebenezer Williams Scribe."
One hundred and fifty years have flown since all that speak- ing and play-acting and those high doings took place in the "House of Mr. Thomas Atwater," the site of which might yet be located. What, we wonder, did those boys have for dinner and what liquor filled the "Chearful glass," unless, peradven- ture, it was Santa Cruz or Jamaica rum, as already suggested. And what was the location of the house of Mr. Brown, in which the previous anniversary exercises of Hale's time were held ?
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FOOTSTEPS OF HALE IN NEW HAVEN
We get but one more glimpse of Hale at Yale and that on the Commencement Day of his Class. The exercises were held on September 3, 1773, in the New Brick Meetinghouse on the Green, the predecessor of Center Church. The build- ing accommodated about nine hundred people and we may believe that the exercises drew a "capacity house." The fol- lowing account is from the "Connecticut Journal and New Haven Post Boy," of September 10, 1773 :
"Last Wednesday the Public Commencement was attended in this town. The Exercises in the forenoon were introduced with Prayer by the Rev'd President. A Latin salutatory Oration was pronounced by Mr. Wyllys ; succeeded by a syllogistic Forensic Debate by Messrs. Beckwith, Fairchild, Mead and Flint, on this question, 'Whether a large Metropolis would be of public advantage to this Colony?' This was succeeded by a Dialogue in English, by Messrs. Alden, Keyes and Marvin, on the three learned Professions ; and an English Oration on Prejudice, by Mr. Williams. The Exercises in the forenoon were then concluded with an Anthem.
"In the afternoon, The Exercises were introduced by an English Oration on the State of private Schools in this Colony, by Mr. Davenport. Then succeeded a Latin syllogistic Dispute, which was followed by a Forensic Debate, by Messrs. Hale [Italics mine], Samson, Robinson, and Talmadge, on this Question, 'Whether the Education of Daughters be not without any just reason, more neglected than that of Sons?' After the usual Degrees were conferred on the Candidates, the Exercises were closed with a Latin Valedictory Oration, by Mr. Lewis, an elegant Anthem, and a suitable Prayer by the President."
The grand finale seems to have been the forensic debate in which Hale took part with his classmates Sampson, Robinson and Tallmadge. It is a pity that we have no stenographic report of this "forensic debate," the theme of which was a daring one, for one hundred and fifty years ago, and shows that there were at least some progressives in the Yale Class of 1773. According to tradition, Hale spoke for the daugh- ters. That he was interested in the education of the daughters may be inferred from the fact that when he became the pre- ceptor of the Union School in New London, twenty young ladies came to the schoolhouse (which is still standing) between the hours of five and seven in the morning to receive instruction from the handsome young collegian from Yale.
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It is gratifying to know that twenty young women of the haute noblesse of New London had such an interest in educa- tion that when the morning broke they left their comfortable beds and repaired to the schoolhouse to receive his instruction, probably in the "three R's." Hale seems to have been gratified by his drawing power as an instructor of young females, since in writing to his friend Eneas Munson, Sr., of New Haven, and also to his uncle, Major Samuel Hale, of Portsmouth, N. H., he mentions the fact that twenty young ladies were coming to him for instruction between the hours of five and seven in the morning. One may imagine that the twittering of the birds on the outside of the building did not exceed what went on in the inside.
After leaving New Haven, Hale continued his corre- spondence with friends here, and apparently came here at least once and saw his friends, Dr. Eneas Munson, Sr., and Eneas, Jr. The latter gave the following account of Hale to Lossing, the historian, who came here in 1848 to collect material for his book entitled, "The Two Spies." Lossing's account of that interview with Eneas Munson, Jr., may be quoted in full :
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