Part 8 (1/2)

The tract is now covered mainly by buildings devoted to educational and philanthropic uses. Possibly the dust of the Martyr Spy may lie in the grounds of the Normal, or Hunter, College.

Other materials, found since Mr. Kelby wrote, confirm his conclusions and make Third Avenue, not far north of Sixty-sixth Street, the most probable spot of Nathan Hale's death. The n.o.blest educational inst.i.tutions in New York City could have no more appropriate foundations than those laid above the bodies of patriots who have died, not only for the freedom of the city, but for that of the whole land.

For a time, as was inevitable, a pall seemed thrown over the memory of Nathan Hale, and at first only the love of his own family strove to commemorate his life and death. A stone was erected to his memory in the cemetery at South Coventry, near the spot where his father expected to be buried. It still stands there and has been declared to be one of the best examples of the lettering of the times. It bears this inscription:

”Durable stone preserve the monumental record. Nathan Hale Esq. a Capt.

in the army of the United States, who was born June 6th, 1755, and received the first honors of Yale College, Sept. 1773, resigned his life a sacrifice to his country's liberty at New York, Sept. 22d, 1776, Etatis 22d.”

One by one were placed near his, his father's stone (his father died at eighty-five), and those of other members of his family. These graves are in a common burial lot near the Congregational Church in South Coventry where the family had wors.h.i.+ped.

In November, 1837, the Hale Monument a.s.sociation was formed for the purpose of erecting at Coventry a fitting memorial of the martyr-soldier. Congress was applied to for several years, but was slow in appropriating money to honor the dead,--strangely unlike England in honoring her martyrs, as will be seen later.

Appeals were made to the State legislature, and Stuart, Hale's earliest biographer and sincere admirer, used his influence as a legislator in securing an appropriation of twelve hundred and fifty dollars. The women of Coventry redoubled their zeal, and by fairs, teas, etc., raised a sufficient sum, added to the grant from the legislature and contributions from some prominent men of the country, to pay for the cenotaph. It is a pyramidal shaft, resting on a base of steps, with a shelving projection one-third of the way up the pedestal. The material is of hewn Quincy granite. It was designed by Henry Austin of New Haven.

It is fourteen feet square at the base and forty-five feet high. It was completed under the superintendence of Solomon Willard, architect of Bunker Hill Monument, at a cost of about four thousand dollars.

The inscription on the north side is, ”Captain Nathan Hale, 1776”; on the west, ”Born at Coventry, June 6, 1755”; on the east, ”Died at New York, Sept. 22, 1776”; on the south, ”I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

The monument stands on elevated ground. ”Its site is particularly fine;... on the north it overlooks a beautiful lake, while on the east it looks through a captivating natural vista to greet the sun.”

With the planning of this monument began the revival of interest in Nathan Hale's short but splendid career that is still gathering strength and will eventually establish his name among those of the bravest American patriots.

CHAPTER VIII

TRIBUTES TO NATHAN HALE

When Captain Montressor told Hale's dismayed friends of the terrible doom that had befallen their comrade, it must have seemed as if all the influence Hale might have had in a prolonged life, all that could come to such a man, had been sacrificed. We must not blame them if the question involuntarily rose in their hearts, ”Why such waste? Why was such an influence so permanently destroyed?” Curiously enough, many years pa.s.sed with little special notice by the public of Hale's death.

But the leaven of patriotism works, even though slowly, and step by step Hale was coming to his own. Little by little the memory of his sacrifice for his country, and the fact that he had left words that should glow with increasing splendor, took possession of those who had ears to hear and hearts to remember.

Old Linonia in Yale did not forget the splendid boy, once its Chancellor, who died as he had lived. Linonia's records still bear, in clear and perfect lines, reports his hand had written when he was its most a.s.siduous member. Others might have forgotten him; Linonia had not.

On its one-hundredth anniversary, July 27, 1853,--Commencement Week,--the poet of the occasion was Francis Miles Finch, Yale, 1846, later Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. As poet, Mr. Finch of course recalled many former members of the society. He ended with a poem on Nathan Hale in which he held his listeners spellbound as stanza after stanza, magnetic in proportion to their truthful beauty, fell from his lips.

There has been a further service to his country by Judge Finch. His own character has been graven into two different poems,--the one just referred to, and one that he wrote later. The latter poem had, undoubtedly, a powerful influence in causing our national Decoration Day to be celebrated throughout the United States.

The story of this poem is interesting. In a town in Mississippi certain Southern women went on a spring day, soon after the close of the Civil War, to cover with flowers the graves of their beloved dead. The gracious and tender thought must have come to them that in the graves of aliens buried among them lay those as deeply mourned in Northern homes as were those they themselves had loved.

Certainly no sweeter suggestion could have been more tenderly carried out than that which led these bereaved women to spread flowers over the graves of those who were once their enemies. Mr. Finch was told of this incident, and the lines he wrote show his appreciation of the ”generous deed.” The poem, ”The Blue and the Gray,” did much to heal the wounds in both North and South.

The two poems by Judge Francis Miles Finch are quoted here, the first with the drum-beat pulsing through it; the second in musical, flowing lines that carry in them sorrow, loyalty, and the community of a common bereavement.

HALE'S FATE AND FAME

And one there was--his name immortal now-- Who dies not to the ring of rattling steel, Or battle-march of spirit-stirring drum, But, far from comrades and from friendly camp, Alone upon the scaffold.

To drum-beat and heart-beat A soldier marches by; There is color in his cheek, There is courage in his eye, Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat In a moment he must die.

By starlight and moonlight He seeks the Briton's camp, He hears the rustling flag, And the armed sentry's tramp.

And the starlight and moonlight His silent wanderings lamp.