Introduction
Born: April 3, 1822, Boston, Massachusetts.
Died: June 10, 1909, Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Buried: Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Boston, Massachusetts
Born: April 3, 1822, Boston, Massachusetts.
Died: June 10, 1909, Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Buried: Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Edward was the son of Nathan Hale, editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser, and Sarah Preston Everett, and grand-nephew of American Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale.
His wife was Emily Baldwin Perkins, niece of Connecticut Governor and U.S. Senator Roger Sherman Baldwin on her father’s side, and Lyman Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher on her mother’s side.
After graduating from the Boston Latin School at age 13, Edward immediately enrolled at Harvard University. At Harvard, he won two Bowdoin prizes and was elected Class Poet. He graduated with the class of 1839, then studied at Harvard Divinity School.
He was pastor of a Unitarian church in Worcester, Massachusetts (1846–56), and of South Church in Boston (1856–99). When he retired from South Church in 1899, he chose as his successor Edward Cummings, father of poet E. E. Cummings.
Hale served as 51st chaplain of the United States Senate, 1903–09.
A quote attributed to him that we like—When asked if he prayed for American senators, he said No, I look at senators and pray for the country.
Who came at the eleventh hour,
And to their tasks were true,
And labored each as he had power,
Received—each man his due.
Who came when day was breaking bright,
And labored all day through,
Till evening melted into night,
Received—each man his due.
These looked at those, those looked at these,
As from their Lord they came;
The dues of those, the dues of these,
They saw, were just the same.
For those and these God’s children are,
Born for eternity;
Moments of time could not compare
With lives which live for aye.
And souls whose every hope is fixed above
Have no less due from God
Than all a Father’s love.
Edward Everett Hale
Poems and Fancies, 1901