Mr. Hale, the subject of this sketch, was born on the 31st of March, 1806, at Rochester, New Hampshire. When a boy he, like most New England boys, attended the common district school of his neighborhood. When he grew up to be a young man, he was sent to Phillips Academy, at Exeter, where the well-known Dr. Abbott also educated Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Lewis Cass and other distinguished men. In September, 1823, Mr. Hale entered Bowdoin College, and graduated with high honors in 1827. Among his associates in college were Hawthorne, Longfellow, Franklin Pierce, Prof. Stone, and S. S. Prentiss. In 1828, Mr. Hale selected his home, the town of Dover, where he now resides. There he went to study law in the office of D. M. Christie. He was admitted to the bar in 1830, and in 1834 his clients had become so numerous that he was obliged to take a partner. He was never so distinguished as a law-_student_, as for his popular argument with a jury. His forte was then, as now, in appealing directly to the hearts of men. By common sense, humor, pathos and sarcasm he won his cause. Mr. Hale was, we presume, a little more inclined to politics than to law, and if we may judge at all from his looks to-day, he was never over-fond of severe application, mental or physical, to labor. In 1832, Mr. Hale was elected to represent Dover in the New Hampshire Legislature, and was a staunch Democrat. In 1834, General Jackson appointed him U.S. Attorney for the district of New Hampshire, an office which he filled creditably to himself. Mr. Van Buren continued him in this office, and he filled it till John Tyler removed him. This was a turning point in his history. He fell back to his old practice of the law; but in 1843, he was nominated and elected to Congress, to take his seat in the House of Representatives. A struggle was at that time beginning between the North and the South, and Mr. Hale, apparently to his certain defeat and humiliation, for New Hampshire was then overwhelmingly Democratic, took side with the North and freedom. He was renominated for Congress, but soon afterward he had the courage to come out in a letter denouncing the annexation of Texas. This, as a matter of course, brought down upon him the enmity of his old companions. The State Democratic Committee called a new convention in his district, set his nomination aside, and nominated John Woodbury in his place. It was at this juncture that Mr. Hale showed his nerve, and it is said that his spirited wife sustained him through the campaign with a courage and spirit second only to his own. Suffice it to say, that after an arduous campaign, Mr. Hale triumphed so far as to prevent his competitor from being elected. A majority was required to elect, and no candidate could get that majority. The next year Mr. Hale was sent again to the State Legislature to represent the town of Dover, and he was chosen Speaker of the House of Representatives. He presided so fairly and won so much upon the