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Both Richard and Elizabeth Hale were of the strictest sect of the Puritans of their day. They revered the Bible as the voice of God; reverenced magistrates and gospel ministers as his chosen servants; regarded the strict observance of the Christian Sabbath as a binding obligation, and family worship and grace before meals as imperative duties and precious privileges.

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.