The sixth child of Richard and Elizabeth Hale they named NATHAN. He was feeble in body at the beginning of his life, and gave very little promise of surviving the period of infancy; but tender motherly care carried him safely over the critical second year, and he became a robust child, physically and mentally. He grew up a lively, sweet-tempered, and beautiful youth; and these qualities marked his young manhood. Nathan Hale, the distinguished person alluded to, bright and active, loved out-of-door pastimes, and communing with Nature everywhere. He was conspicuous among his companions for remarkable athletism. He would spring, with apparent ease, out of one hogshead into another, through a series; and he would place his hand upon a fence as high as his head, and spring over it at a bound with apparently little effort. Having an intense thirst for knowledge, young Hale was very studious. His father designed him for the Christian ministry, and he was fitted for college by the Rev. Dr. Huntington, one of the most eminent Congregational divines and scholars of his day, and then the pastor of the parish in which Nathan was born. Young Hale entered Yale College when in the sixteenth year of his age. His brother Enoch, the grandfather of Rev. Edward Everett Hale, of Boston, and two years the senior of Nathan, entered Yale at the same time. The students then numbered about sixty. His course of college-life was eminently praiseworthy; and he was graduated with the highest honors in September, 1773. Popular with all the students, the tutors, and the faculty, he was always a welcome visitor in the best families of New Haven. In the autumn of 1848 I visited the venerable Eneas Munson, M.D., at New Haven. He had been assistant surgeon, under Dr. Thatcher, in the old War for Independence. He knew young Hale well during the later period of his life at Yale College, for he was then a frequent visitor at the home of Dr. Munson's father.