At Yale with Nathan Hale

 

Nathan Hale is remembered today as the quintessential patriot who proclaimed that his only regret was that he had but one life to give for his country. We don’t actually know for sure if Hale said those words, but we do know that he gave his life on 22 September 1776 when he was hanged as a rebel spy. He was only twenty-one years old and had graduated from Yale College three years earlier. He had been at school through the rise of revolution and conflict, undoubtedly discussing with his erudite peers the events that led to the Declaration of Independence and Hale’s ultimate sacrifice.

Two months after turning fourteen, Nathan began his collegiate life at Yale alongside his brother, Enoch, who was nineteen months his senior. The brothers were close friends and roommates, distinguished by their peers as Primus and Secundus. Even the Yale billing records refer to Nathan as ‘Hale 2.’ The brothers seem to have been rarely separated until after their graduation in 1773.

They shared several friends who also played their part in the American Revolution. Of these young men, Benjamin Tallmadge would eventually become the best known, with the possible exception of Nathan himself. Tallmadge became a highly successful officer and spymaster in the Continental Army, but at Yale he was just another student, if a particularly intelligent and overachieving one. In his memoirs, Tallmadge admitted that his preparation for Yale meant that ‘I had not much occasion to study during the first two years of my collegiate life, which I have always thought had a tendency to make me idle.’ 

One evening in 1771, this idleness led to troublemaking when Tallmadge, the Hale brothers, and some other students broke several windows on campus. One can imagine that Enoch, who was studying to be a minister, must have felt particularly repentant when the bill was sent to their father. Benjamin’s father was also a minister, who might have sent his son a strongly worded reprimand when he was informed of the extra charges.

The boys were not generally troublemakers, however, and a great deal of their free time was spent in intellectual debate as part of the Linonia Society. This fraternity, dedicated to ‘the promotion of friendship and useful knowledge’ gave the young men the opportunity to discuss, debate, and inquire on topics from mathematics and astronomy to religion and philosophy. They undoubtedly had lively talks about the current events of the day and the path to revolution, possibly even discussing Joseph Addison’s Cato from which Nathan’s alleged last words were paraphrased.

In 1771, Nathan served as scribe for the Linonia Society, and his name appears at the end of the surviving meeting minutes. He recorded event participants, questions presented, and topics discussed. One of the items he records is the creation of the society’s library. Since Yale made books available only on-site, the Linonians decided to supply their own library with books that could be checked out by members. The Hale brothers and other members each made contributions of a varied collection of books, including the works of Shakespeare, The Vicar of Wakefield, Rollins Ancient History, Paradise Lost, and The Art of Speaking. 

When the Hale brothers graduated in 1773, Nathan participated in a debate on the education of women. The transcript of this debate has not survived, but the fact that Nathan later opened lessons to young women at the school he managed gives us insight to the strength of his feelings on this topic. During his brief time as a schoolmaster before entering the army, Nathan taught girls from 5-7am before his male students arrived for the day.

Through his experience at Yale, we can see the development of Nathan Hale into an intelligent, loyal patriot who was willing to sacrifice all, even his life, for his ideals and for his country.

This article was originally published at the blog of Author Salina B Baker as part of the But One Life Blog Tour in June 2022.

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Nathan Hale & the Linonian Society Library

College students today have become accustomed to libraries of almost infinite resources. Items not directly placed into one's hands upon request might be available online or through an interlibrary loan. Such was not the case at Yale College in the 18th century.

Pickings were slim, especially for undergraduate students in their first and second years. In 1755, only twenty-eight books were made available for check-out by freshmen and sophomores. Even upperclassmen found their options often did not include books that they were hoping to read.

Connecticut Hall
Yale dorm where Nathan Hale roomed with his brother, Enoch

In 1770, the young men of the Linonian Society decided to do something about this problem. The Linonian Society was a club formed for the purpose of rhetoric and debate covering a wide variety of topics. It is no wonder that such a group of erudite students would desire greater access to the types of titles they wished to discuss.

The notes of their 16 July 1770 meeting record the founding of the Linonian Society Library. Nathan Hale donated some of the initial supply of books. He would also later become the scribe who wrote the minutes for Linonian Society meetings. The Travels of Cyrus by AM Ramsay was one of his contributions.

Nathan also provided a share of the cost of subscribing to The Spectator. One of the founders of The Spectator was Joseph Addison, who wrote the play Cato, which might have inspired Nathan Hale's final words when he was hanged by the British as a rebel spy on 22 September 1776. 

If Hale did say something like, 'My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country,' it is likely that he was inspired by Cato when he says of his son's death in battle, 'How beautiful is death when earn'd by virtue! What a pity is it, that we can die but once to serve our country.' Another report quoted Hale as saying, 'If I had ten thousand lives, I would lay them all down.' This line is also a paraphrase from Addison's Cato when he insists that it would be, 'Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honour.'

Cato is also often named as one of General George Washington's favorite plays, and it was put on by soldiers during the harsh winter of 1777-8 at Valley Forge. Nathan Hale probably wouldn't have known of the general's preference and died before this production, but it makes his choice of last words more poignant since it was Washington's desire for information on the enemy that led to Nathan's death. 

The Linonian Society continued to build and care for its library for a century. In 1871, the titles were transferred to the Yale library, which had also improved in the intervening decades. These titles, bearing a bookplate designating them as Linonian property remain part of the Yale library today.

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