Nathan Hale was at this time an unusually handsome young man, almost six feet in height, well proportioned, with broad chest, athletic, as we have seen, and with a handsome, intelligent face, blue eyes, light brown hair of a rich color, and a winning smile. These, added to a musical voice and gracious manners, gave him a personal charm that attracted all who saw him.
As a teacher he combined unusual tact and manly dignity, making his discipline in school as effective as it was reasonable. He also proved to be as skillful in imparting knowledge as he had been in acquiring it, and his success as a teacher was assured from the outset.
His first school was in East Haddam, Connecticut. There was then much wealth and business activity in the town, although, to a man fresh from college and the city, it appeared to be a very quiet place, as one or two of his early letters indicate. Yet there too he did with all his might what his hands found to do, and soon proved that not only his work, but his social qualities, were endearing him to new friends, some of whom remembered him with pleasure during their own long lives; one of them saying of Nathan Hale in her own old age, "Everybody loved him, he was so sprightly, intelligent, and kind," and, she added withal, "and so handsome!" He had many correspondents among classmates and friends. Sometimes he was stimulated to put his thoughts into rhyme by some poetical epistle he received. One such was from Benjamin Tallmadge, then in Wethersfield.
Tallmadge had apologized for his muse and Hale, in pure boyish fun, with a fine disregard of whether he was invoking the muse or mounting Pegasus, replied as follows:
"But here, I think you're wrong, to blame
Your gen'rous muse and call her lame,
For when arriv'd no mark was found
Of weakness, lameness, sprain or wound."
Then, invoking her himself, he describes her as if she were indeed the wingèd steed,
"With me in charge (a grievous load!)
Along the way she lately trode,
In all, she gave no fear or pain,
Unless, at times, to hold the rein."
At last, on his supposed arrival at Wethersfield, he invites Tallmadge's judgment on the appearance of the equine muse, thus:
"Now judge, unless entirely sound
If she could bear me such a round.
It's certain then your muse is heal'd,
Or else, came sound from Weathersfield."
Before the end of the first term (October, 1773, to mid-March, 1774) in East Haddam, however, his work had aroused attention elsewhere, and in May, 1774, he took charge of a school in New London, called the "Union School,"—a larger school and a more lucrative position than that at East Haddam. In it Latin, English, arithmetic, and writing were taught. The salary was seventy pounds a year with a prospect of an increase, and he was allowed to teach private classes as well.