The lives of both these women, Sarah and Alice Adams, are sufficient witnesses to the high character of the new mother added to the Hale household. To several of his biographers it has seemed quite probable that Nathan Hale wrote one of his last two letters to this mother. We grant that it may have been addressed to her, while intended for the reading of another. Of this, later.
In regard to the marriage of John Hale and Sarah Adams it may be as well to state here that, after a married life of thirty-one years, John Hale died suddenly in December, 1802, his health probably undermined by his service in the Revolutionary War, where he held the rank of major. His widow, desiring to carry out what she believed would have been his wishes, "bequeathed £1000 to trustees as a fund, the income of which was to be used for the support of young men preparing for missionary service,"--probably among the Indians, as this was before the support of foreign missions was undertaken in America--"and in part for founding and supporting the Hale Library in Coventry, to be used by the ministers of Coventry and the neighboring towns." Included in the bequest for founding the still existing so-called "Hale Donation" was a portrait of the donor's husband, Major John Hale;--well painted, for the period, and now of great interest. Mrs. John Hale died a few months after her husband. It is easy to believe that, though born of different parents, the Hale and Adams families were congenial mentally and morally, and that Deacon Richard Hale was a wise and fortunate man in his choice of a second mother for his children.
According to his mother's and grandmother's wishes, it was early decided that Nathan should be prepared to enter college. After the fashion of those times, he and two of his brothers began their preparatory studies under the direction of the Rev. Joseph Huntington, D.D., then pastor of the church in Nathan's native town. He is said to have been a man noted for his intellectual power, for his patriotism, and for his courteous manners.
It may be well to say here that, in those early days, the New England ministers usually settled in one pastorate for life, and they were not only teachers in spiritual things, but were noted for their courteous and dignified manners; so that even before he entered college Nathan Hale must have had ample opportunities for the cultivation of the easy manners and courteous deportment which are said by all who knew him to have been so marked in him.