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