Our Connection to Nathan Hale – a Patriot

I mentioned in the end notes of the blog story Henry Hale Unsolved posted on September 21, 2020, that verbal family stories tell that “we are somehow related to Nathan Hale” the American patriot and spy who was captured and hanged by the British during the Revolutionary War.  The family’s assumption was that Nathan Hale fit somehow into the family tree of our Henry Hale, my 3^rd great grandfather.  And since I don’t know anything about the parents or siblings of Henry Hale, it was a mystery how our HALE family might connect to Nathan Hale’s family.

In my last blog post, I shared that Henry Hale (b.1773 or 1745 – d.1841) descends through the HAILE family of Baltimore, and earlier of Virginia.  I had previously checked to see how our HALE line might connect to the family of Nathan Hale, but with no luck.  So, maybe Nathan Hale, the patriot, was not related to our line through the HALE / HAILE family at all, but some other way.  Nathan Hale was from Connecticut, and he lived in New London where he worked as a teacher just prior to the beginning of the Revolution.  I decided to check and see if the connection might be through one my many family lines in New London, CT. 

Nathan Hale (1755-1776) was born in Coventry, Connecticut to parents, Deacon Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong Hale.  He had brothers, Joseph and Enoch, and a sister, Elizabeth. 

     Deacon Richard Hale (1717-1802) m. Elizabeth Strong (1728-1767)

         1) Joseph Hale (1750-1784) m. Rebecca Harris (1746- ? )

         2) Elizabeth Hale (1752-1813) m. Samuel Rose (1748-1800)

         3) Enoch Hale (1753-1837) m. Octavia Throop (1754-1839)

         4) Nathan Hale (1755-1766) never married

Nathan Hale attended college at Yale and graduated when he was 18 years of age.  He then became a school teacher first at East Haddam, CT and next he taught school in New London.  Nathan joined the Connecticut militia in 1775.   And in 1776 he moved with the Continental Army to New York to defend New York City against an anticipated British attack.  George Washington called for a spy to get behind enemy lines and report on troop movement. Hale was the only volunteer.  The British eventually discovered his identity and captured him.  He was only 21 years old when he was hanged by the British as a Colonial spy in New York City.  Nathan Hale’s last words before he was hanged were said to be “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”.

 

I found that our family connection to Nathan Hale probably comes through the HARRIS family of New London.  The HARRIS family links with our ROGERS family line through at least two marriages with everyone sharing decendency from my 8^th great grandparents, James Rogers (1615-1687) and his wife Elizabeth Rowland Rogers (~1620-1709).  Below is the connection that I found with Nathan’s family:

1)  Nathan Hale’s older brother, Joseph Hale (1750-1784) married Rebecca Harris (1746-?).  And Rebecca’s sister, Phebe Harris (1736-1803) married James Rogers (1733-1803).  The Rogers children would have all been 1^st cousins to the Hale children, and Joseph & Rebecca’s children would have also been nieces and nephews to Nathan Hale.

James Rogers (1615-1687)

    James Rogers (~1653-1714)

        James Rogers (1674-1733)

            James Rogers (1704-1754)

                James Rogers (1733-1803) m. Phebe Harris

2) Also Rebecca & Phoebe’s aunt, Grace Harris (1707-1787) was married to a different James Rogers (1701-1754), further blending the Harris and Rogers family relationships. This Rogers line also tracks back to the same early ancestor, our common immigrant James Rogers (1615-1687).

James Rogers (1615-1687)

              John Rogers (1648-1721)

                  John Rogers (1674-1753)

                      James Rogers (1701-1754) m. Grace Harris

By comparison, our Rogers family line runs like this:

James Rogers (1615-1687)

              Joseph Rogers (1646-1697)

                  John Rogers (1675-1739)

                      John Rogers (1716-1779)

                          John Rogers (1760-1796) m. Hannah Smith

[For more information on our Rogers line, see the blog post James Rogers, a very early immigrant, dated July 15, 2022.]

Finding our family connection to the patriot Nathan Hale proves that there is often at least a thread of truth in oral histories and it is sometimes not exactly what is stated or implied.  The verbal history told to me by my father that “we are somehow related to Nathan Hale” didn’t actually mean that our HALE family descended from or shared ancestors with Nathan Hale’s family, but more accurately our family was linked through marriage to Nathan Hale’s family.

A much more remote possibility is that we could also be related through our male HALE line, but it appears that if that is the case, it is probably in England prior to immigration to America and not easily traceable.  One online accounting of Nathan Hale’s family tree takes his family back to an immigrant ancestor named Henry Hale who was born about 1575 in England and died in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1659.  Whereas the HAILE genealogy for our Henry Hale [see the recent blog post titled Henry Hale Unsolved – an update] has the first immigrant ancestor as Nicholas Haile who was born in England in 1645 and died about 1670 in Virginia.  It is always possible that those two immigrant ancestors are somehow related; however I doubt that it can be proven.

As genealogists we must step back and look at our oral histories and verbal tales for clues about what has been said, what it means, and even what it doesn’t say.  It can be hard to pick oral histories apart and research the possibilities – but so very satisfying when you finally do see some truth in them!         

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Key Individuals:

My 8^th great grandparents:

James Rogers (1615 – 1687) born in England & died in New London

Elizabeth Rowland (~1620 – 1709) born in England & died in New London

 

Notes: 

Because so many branches of our early family lived in New London, CT for multiple generations, it is likely that there are plenty more times when our family line intersected with the New England family of Nathan Hale.  Noted below are two times when my research has come across other New London HARRIS family members: 

1)  Temperance Harris married David Bill (1751- ?) in 1776.  Upon their marriage they settled in Boston, MA.  This David Bill was an uncle of our Elisabeth Bill Dickinson; and a brother of Elisabeth’s father, Samuel Bill.  See my blog post dated March 1, 2023 titled The Bill Family for more on this line.

2)  Thomas Harris (dates unknown) was the sole survivor of a July 1796 voyage aboard the sloop Polly that left New London for the West Indies and the port of Hispaniola.  The ship arrived at Cape St Nicholas Mole in Haiti with sickness aboard and it was condemned.  The ship’s captain, James Deshon, died in Cape St Nicholas as did most of the crew.  Nathaniel Dickinson (my 4^th great grandfather) who was also aboard the Polly was taken ill and recovered somewhat.  Later he took passage home on another vessel with Thomas Harris who was the only other survivor of the crew of the Polly.  Nathaniel Dickinson died at sea on that return voyage, making Thomas Harris the only survivor that left New London on the sloop Polly and returned to New London.  For more on Nathaniel Dickinson, see my blog post Aboard a Prison Ship in the Revolution dated June 27, 2020.

- Jane Scribner McCrary

Henry Hale Unsolved – an update

One of my early blog posts, published in September of 2020, was titled Henry Hale Unsolved, and in it I shared all that I knew about Henry Hale who is one of my 3^rd great grandfathers.  Capt Henry Hale married Martha Susannah Hall, often referred to as Susan Hall, in September of 1800 in Baltimore County, Maryland.

While we know that Capt Henry Hale died in 1841, the year of his birth is still very debatable as either 1773 (per his newspaper obituary) or 1754/55 (per his gravestone).  Refer to the earlier blog post for a more in depth discussion of his birth date sources and analysis. 

A couple of census records for Henry’s children tell us that he was born in Maryland.  Beyond the information about Henry Hale as noted above, I have never been able to find anything about Henry’s parents or siblings, and thus I have not been able to solve that brick wall and take our Hale line back any earlier.

There is a HAILE family in the Baltimore area in the 1700’s that I have always considered a possible early extension for our HALE line, but have found nothing conclusive to document the connection to our Henry Hale – until now with DNA – specifically with Ancestry’s ThruLines DNA matches.

First let me tell you about Ancestry’s ThruLines DNA matches.  If you take an Ancestry DNA test, then Ancestry will generate for you a list of other people that have also taken the Ancestry DNA test AND who share with you “some” common DNA.  Also, Ancestry will give an approximate guess as to how close that relationship could be – often 5^th-8^th cousins. 

Next, Ancestry uses a program called ThruLines to compare your online Ancestry tree with the trees of your DNA matches looking for possible common ancestors.   Of course, not everyone who has taken an Ancestry DNA test has built an online Ancestry tree, and some trees are marked private and can’t be viewed online.  Also there is always the fact that some of those trees might simply be wrong.  Thus, the results for common ancestry shown by ThruLines will only be as good as the information that was used to build those trees.  There is a lot of room for error, especially when we are looking back at early generations.

ThruLines has identified that I have as many as 16 matches that descend from a HAILE family line.  That’s a lot of DNA matches!  And most of the matches are small matches indicating a possible 5^th-8^th cousin relationship.  Three of those 16 matches are other descendants of my Henry Hale who died in 1841, and are not new to me.  However, the 13 other matches all tie into the HAILE family of Baltimore one or more generations earlier than our Henry Hale, and that is significant.

Those 13 ThruLines DNA matches all seem flow to relationships with sons of George Haile Sr (1712-1791) who married Elizabeth Chaffinch (1716-1788):  

1a) John Halle/Hale (1734-1817) 1 DNA match*

1b) Capt John Haile (1743-1798) 1 DNA match*

2)   George Haile Jr (1735-1805) 5 DNA matches

3)   Meshack Haile (1738-1834) 6 DNA matches

*The matched DNA Ancestry trees for the two John’s have different dates – so you know that they are either different John's or something is not quite right on at least one of those trees.

While we had DNA matches for descendants of 3 of George Haile Sr’s sons, there were several other children.  The Will of George Haile Sr lists 7 sons and 3 daughters in 1788 when it was written: Henry, Joseph, Nicholas, Abednego, George, John, Elizabeth, Frances and Sarah were named in the will.  And probably there was one other son as he also willed a parcel of land to be split between 2 Haile grandsons, Alexander & Joseph.  It is possible that we didn’t get DNA matches with more of the children because they don’t have current descendants. Another possibility is that there were no descendants of those siblings that have taken an Ancestry DNA test AND have an Ancestry tree for ThruLines to analyze that connects to a Haile tree.  That could change in the future as the Ancestry database grows.

Ancestry’s ThruLines program shows to track our line specifically through George Sr & Elizabeth’s son, George Haile Jr & his wife Nancy Anne Grant (1735-?), but I’m not even sure that is a given.   I think that ThruLines routed my suggested tree through the younger George because the trees of 2 of those 13 DNA matches “seem” to connect thru Nancy Anne Grant who was the wife of the younger George Haile Jr, and for that reason both of those matches are categorized by Ancestry as possible “half” 5^th cousins.  

I strongly believe that both of these Ancestry trees aren’t quite right and that they may have wrongly directed the ThruLines results.  However, in spite of the irregularities in those 2 Ancestry trees, there is no question that the owners of these 2 outlying trees are still a DNA match for me.  Like all of the other DNA matches, their link seems to be through one of the children of the elder George Haile Sr.   Another possibility would be that we might link one generation earlier through a brother of that George Haile Sr.

Making research more difficult is the fact that several names were used in this HAILE family repeatedly over several generations, specifically the names of George, Nicholas and Henry.  There are quite a few Henry’s in the trees for several of my DNA matches, but I found none with documentation clearly indicating a Henry that could be our Henry Hale. 

Also, the Ancestry trees all seem to use the birth date for our Henry Hale as 1755 (the date from his gravestone) which is easily found on the internet — though we know it could have also possibly been 1773 (the date from his obituary).  And with a different birth date, it would be very easy to slot Henry into a tree incorrectly or in the wrong generation.  It also should be noted that several of the individuals on the HAILE family tree did use the spelling of HALE.

Not all of the HAILE sons remained in the Baltimore area.  Several branches of the family moved to either Tennessee or Ohio in the 1700’s.  So there is also the scenario that our Henry might have left Maryland with family and later returned to Baltimore as an adult. 

In the end, we see that DNA definitely gives us matches to the Baltimore HAILE family. ThruLines gives us possible avenues of connection, but the Ancestry trees and documentation don’t really give us any proof as to the specific route our HALE connection takes in the HAILE family.  Now we know that Henry Hale links into the HAILE family, just not exactly how.

*  *  *  *  *

Key Individuals:

    Capt Henry Hale  (1773 - 1841)

    Martha Susannah (Susan) Hall Hale  (1778 – 1858)

 

Notes: 

In researching documents relating to the early HAILE family, I discovered that there are a number of ways that the name has been spelled in various published family genealogy books and articles, specifically as HAILE, HALE and HEALE. 

Most resources that I checked were written in the 1900’s.  They included:

·               1908/1909 - The William and Mary Quarterly Journal; Vol. 17; 1^st series

·               1934 – Hale Family by Edith Whitley

·               1969 – Hail, Haile, Hale by Charles M Bennett

·               1989 – Baltimore County Families, 1659-1759 by Robert W Barnes

·               date unknown - Heale-Hale of Lancaster, VA and Texas

These various resources all agree that the first HAILE immigrant was Nicholas Haile Sr, born in England, and he first arrived in Elizabeth City County, VA in 1645.  In 1648 Nicholas purchased 100 acres of land in York County.  And in 1654 he relocated to Lancaster County, VA where he purchased 500 acres of land in 1655.  Known as a “planter”, Nicholas purchased an additional 500 acres in 1657; and in 1666 he again purchased more acreage in Lancaster County, VA.

1) Nicholas Haile Sr (~1628 - ~1670 in VA) m. Mary ?Travers; they had 3 children, George, Nicholas & Mary

1a)  George Haile (~1647-1698 in VA) m. Ellen ?;  they had 2 children, Nicholas b.1672 and George b.1676

1b)  Nicholas Haile (1657- ?) 

The Baltimore HAILE line descends through a Nicholas Haile that was born in 1672, and died in 1730 in Baltimore.  He is believed to be a grandson of the Nicholas Sr & Mary noted above, and the son of George b.~1647, though some accounts note that he might have been a later son of Nicholas Haile Sr. 

This Nicholas Haile (1672-1730) was a Baltimore landowner and his will was written and probated in Baltimore.  Nicholas married Frances Broad Garrett in 1701.  Their children as mentioned in Nicholas’ will included sons Nicholas, George, Neale, and daughters Hannah, Ann, Millicent, Sabina, and Mary.  Also it is believed there “might” have been another son, Henry, who was not noted in his will.

2a) Nicholas (1700- d.bef 1747) m. Ann Long in 1723; had children:

Nicholas b.1724, Susanna 1727, Ann 1732, Shadrack 1735, Meshack 1738, Abednego 1741, and John 1743

2b) George (1712 -1791) m. Elizabeth Chawfinch in 1735; had children:

George b.1735, Henry, Joseph, Elizabeth, Nicholas, Abednego, Meshack, Frances, Sarah, and John

2c) Neale (1718-1796) m. Sarah Robinson; had children:

Charles, Drusilla, Charcilla, and Neal

2d) Henry? b.1721 possibly died young as he is not in his father’s will;  [or he “might” be the Henry Haile who moved to St George’s Parish; m. Mary Bradley in 1741; had children: Thomas b.1741 and Ann 1744]

I also found a brief printed article, without any documentation, claiming that the first immigrant was a George Hale who arrived in Virginia in 1620 and married Mary Elizabeth Blood in 1626 – both having been born in England.  This HALE line looks similar, a few dates vary, but it seems to push back one generation earlier:

George Hale m. Mary Elizabeth Blood [the first immigrants]

Nicholas Hale (1628-1671) m. Mary ?

Nicholas Hale (1666-1729) m. Frances Garrett

George Hale (1712-1788) m. Elizabeth Chaffinch

            Abednego Hale (1745-1801) m. Ruth

It is complicated because there are so many questions and only sketchy documentation with nothing that specifies how my Henry Hale fits into the Baltimore HAILE family – just that DNA matches indicate that he does.  I welcome your thoughts and any research that you might find about these early HAILE / HALE connections.

- Jane Scribner McCrary