Benson J Lossing

The Two Spies Benson J Lossing

In a picturesque region of Tolland County, Connecticut, twenty miles eastward of Hartford, situated upon an eminence which commands a beautiful and extensive prospect westward toward the State capital, there once stood, and perhaps now stands, a pleasant farm-house, built of wood, and two stories in height.[1] In that house, on the 6th of June, 1755, a child was born whose name appears conspicuous in our national history. It was a boy, and one of twelve children, whose father, Richard Hale, had emigrated in early life from Newberry, in Massachusetts, to Coventry, and there married Elizabeth Strong, a charming maiden eighteen years of age. He was a descendant of Robert Hale, or Hales, who settled in Charlestown, in 1632, and who seems to have been a scion of the Hales of Kent, for he bore their coat-of-arms-three broad arrows feathered white, on a red field. Both Richard and Elizabeth Hale were of the strictest sect of the Puritans of their day. They revered the Bible as the voice of God; reverenced magistrates and gospel ministers as his chosen servants; regarded the strict observance of the Christian Sabbath as a binding obligation, and family worship and grace before meals as imperative duties and precious privileges. The sixth child of Richard and Elizabeth Hale they named NATHAN. He was feeble in body at the beginning of his life, and gave very little promise of surviving the period of infancy; but tender motherly care carried him safely over the critical second year, and he became a robust child, physically and mentally. He grew up a lively, sweet-tempered, and beautiful youth; and these qualities marked his young manhood.