STRANGER, BENEATH THIS STONE LIES THE DUST OF A SPY, WHO PERISHED UPON THE GIBBET; YET THE STORIED MARBLES OF THE GREAT, THE SHRINES OF HEROES, ENTOMBED NOT ONE MORE WORTHY OF HONOR THAN HIM WHO HERE SLEEPS HIS LAST SLEEP. NATIONS BOW WITH REVERENCE BEFORE THE DUST OF HIM WHO DIES A GLORIOUS DEATH, URGED ON BY THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET AND THE SHOUTS OF ADMIRING THOUSANDS. BUT WHAT REVERENCE, WHAT HONOR, IS NOT DUE TO ONE WHO FOR HIS COUNTRY ENCOUNTERED EVEN AN INFAMOUS DEATH, SOOTHED BY NO SYMPATHY, ANIMATED BY NO PRAISE! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 5: Her name was Alice Adams. She was a native of Canterbury, Connecticut, and was distinguished both for her intelligence and personal beauty. After Hale's death she married Eleazar Ripley, who left her a widow, with one child, at the age of eighteen years. The child died about a year after its father's death, and the mother subsequently married William Lawrence, of Hartford, where she lived until September, 1845, when she died at the age of eighty-eight years. She possessed a miniature of Hale and many of his letters. The miniature and the letters disappeared many years ago, and there is no likeness of the young martyr extant. The last words uttered by Hale's betrothed were, "Write to Nathan!"--Stuart's "Life of Nathan Hale," p. 28.] [Footnote 6: The place of Hale's execution has been a subject of conjecture. Some have supposed that it occurred near the Beekman mansion, Howe's headquarters; others, that he was taken from the Provost Prison (now the Hall of Records), in the City Hall Park, to the usual place of execution of state criminals, at the Barracks near Chambers Street; and others, on the farm of Colonel Rutgers, whose country mansion was near the East River--at Pike and Monroe Streets. In 1849 I visited the venerable Jeremiah Johnson, ex-Mayor of Brooklyn, who was living at his farm-house not far from the Navy-Yard, then between the city of Brooklyn and the village of Williamsburgh. Among other interesting facts concerning the Revolution, of his own experience and observation, which he had treasured in his memory, was that his father was present at the execution of Hale. Like other Long Island farmers at that time, he went to New York occasionally with truck. On the day of the great fire he was there, when himself and his team were pressed into the service of the British. He was with the detachment on Colonel Rutgers's farm at the time of the execution, and saw the martyr hanged upon the limb of an apple-tree in Rutgers's orchard. It was at the west side, not far from the line of (present) East Broadway.] [Footnote 7: The method employed at military executions at that time was to place a ladder against the gallows-beam or limb, cause the prisoner to ascend it a few feet, and, at a given signal, turn the ladder and leave the victim suspended.]