The Hale Monument at Coventry.
The Hale memorial stands upon elevated ground near the Congregational Church in South Coventry, and by the side of the old burial-ground in which repose the remains of his nearest kindred. Toward the north it overlooks the beautiful Lake Waugumbaug, in the pellucid waters of which Hale angled in his boyhood and early youth.
The monument was designed by Henry Austin, of New Haven, and was erected under the superintendence of Solomon Willard, the architect of the Bunker's Hill Monument. It was completed in the summer of 1846, at a cost of three thousand seven hundred and thirty-four dollars. The material is Quincy granite. Its form is seen in the engraving. The height is forty-five feet, and it is fourteen feet square at its base. The pedestal bears on its four sides the following inscriptions:
North side: "Captain Nathan Hale, 1776." West side: "Born at Coventry, June 6, 1755." East side: "Died at New York, September 22, 1776." South side: "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
The fate of young Hale produced universal sorrow in the Continental army and among the patriotic people. In the Whig newspapers of the day tributes to his worth as a man and a patriot appeared in both prose and verse.[9] During the War of 1812'-15, a little fort, erected upon Black Rock, at the entrance to New Haven Harbor, on the site of a smaller one, built during the Revolution, was named Fort Hale, the first monument of stone that commemorated him. It has long been in ruins. Then followed the simple structure built by his neighbors at Coventry. Brief notices of the martyr have been given from time to time in occasional poetic effusions and in oratory. Timothy Dwight, Hale's tutor at Yale College, and afterward president of that institution, wrote:
"Thus while fond Virtue wished in vain to save,
Hale, bright and generous, found a hapless grave;
With genius' living flame his bosom glowed,
And Science lured him to her sweet abode.
In Worth's fair path his feet adventured far,
The pride of peace, the rising hope of war;
In duty firm, in danger calm as even,
To friends unchanging, and sincere to Heaven.
How short his course, the prize how early won!
While weeping Friendship mourns her favorite gone."
I.W. Stuart, in his little biography of Hale,[10] has preserved fragments of several poetic effusions. A short time after Hale's death, an unknown personal friend of the martyr wrote a poem of one hundred and sixty lines, in which he described the personal appearance of the young soldier—tall and with "a beauteous face." Of his qualities of temper and conduct he wrote:
"Removed from envy, malice, pride, and strife,
He walked through goodness as he walked through life;
A kinder brother Nature never knew,
A child more duteous or a friend more true."
Of Hale's motives in becoming a spy he wrote:
"Hate of oppression's arbitrary plan,
The love of freedom, and the rights of man;
A strong desire to save from slavery's chain
The future millions of the Western main."