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resurrectionist3 · 6 months ago

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June 6th, 1755 - Happy Birthday Nathan Hale!!!

We are gonna pretend like this isn’t several days late.

And this post is about to be super long…

Disclaimer: for the entirety of the post, I’m recalling information that was told to me by the tour guide from the Nathan Hale Homestead. If anything I wrote here is incorrect or not complete information, feel free to KINDLY correct me in a comment or repost, I would appreciate that☺️

Back in May (05/18/24), I visited the Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry, Connecticut with my sister!!

I always drive by it when I go home from school and I finally got to visit for a tour! They also have a farmers market on grounds in the summertime as well as a couple other events throughout the year. I do hope i get to attend their Halloween ghost stories.

One thing i learned that i guess i didn’t ever realise was that Nathan never actually lived in this house. After his mother passed, Nathan’s father, Deacon Richard Hale and all 9(?) of his children lived together in a very, very small house. It wasnt until after Richard was remarried, that this newer and larger house was built. By this point, i believe Nathan had already moved away to be a teacher in New London.

Here are photos of their medicine cabinet and their fireplace✨

Photos of their piano forte in the sitting room and a drawn family tree.

And this was Deacon Richard Hale’s writing desk. If I remember correctly, he was a deacon in the church and a magistrate. He dealt with small court disputes in their house which I found very silly (and the wax stamp had an H on it idk why that made me die😭)

And here, in one of the upstairs rooms, they displayed artist renditions of what we think Nathan Hale and his brothers looked like. I think Nathan had 9 (?) biological siblings that survived to adulthood, one of which being his sister Johanna. And then i believe he had 3 step siblings after his father remarried (im trying to recall everything the tour guide said).

Johanna isnt depictied in these drawings, its only the brothers, but her room was on display for the tour and it had a lot of windows. The tour guide said it was because she apparently loved to read, so they made sure her room had the most windows for the most light??😭😭🥹🥹

Anyways, all of Nathan’s brothers went to war except for the youngest one. Also, if you look at the years of their deaths, Samuel Hale (the oldest sibling) actually outlived them all?? Which makes me want to scream???? Samuel also didn’t inherit the family farm, it actually went to his brother John.

Joseph Hale- (damn he can get it lowkey..🥵) while in the war was captured by the British and was on a prison ship until he was exchanged and honestly I’ve been thinking about it too much. So glad he didn’t die of dysentery or something. But he did pass of consumption at only 34 which I can’t even handle.

Enoch, went to Yale along with Nathan and they were in the same graduating class which i think is so cutesy. The tour guide also said that one of the pewter steins in one of the sitting rooms (i don’t actually have a photo unfortunately) belonged to Enoch and I wanted to scream, like was it ACTUALLY his???

They had a display of several items they found on the property like coins, buttons, ect. but I didn’t take a photo of that either. It was in the same room as these images of the brothers.

I think we all know Nathan, and quite honestly i didn’t even realise he had so many siblings until this tour. I suppose one could assume given the time period - everyone had like 5+ children. But of all the times i was taught about Nathan Hale (and that was kind of a lot, being a Connecticut resident for my entire life) no one ever mentioned his family or his siblings. There was a portrait of Deacon Richard Hale in the downstairs area- I didn’t realise this in the moment, my sister mentioned it later, but (based on the artist’s rendition) Nathan looked just like his father. I found it really funny when i realised it.

This was Nathan’s hunting rifle as well, another thing that apparently belonged to one of the members of the Hale family that made me want to scream (more on that in my final thoughts).

And last photo (the Turn: Washington’s Spies baddies are gonna LOVE this one)

This is a list of the Yale University (back then, it was just Yale College) honours graduating class of 1773. On it, is Nathan and Enoch Hale of course. But also, Nathan’s friend and “roommate” 👀 (and our favourite spymaster) Benjamin Tallmadge!!!!! I had to keep my mouth shut when the tour guide mentioned that he was on this list, but I was screaming internally and my sister and i made goofy ahh eye contact.

Their names are towards the top, Enoch and Nathan are listed in the third small column while Benjamin is in the sixth one all the way to the right.

Things that i saw/were talked about that i didn’t take a photo of was a shadow drawing of Nathan’s side profile. At some point, Nathan stood in front of a door in the house while someone traced the outline of his shadow onto it. I don’t quite know why that was done..? Perhaps it was for a genuine reason or maybe the Hale siblings were just messing around. But it’s a pretty big deal considering there are actually no true portraits of Nathan or his siblings. Just statues and drawings that are artist renditions based on historical accounts. There was a historian who wrote about Nathan Hale and came in contact with a member of the Hale family (Rebecca Hale, I believe). She told him about the shadow drawing and it was a long and interesting story that I unfortunately don’t remember all the parts to. A piece about the portrait is typed on a paper in the photo of Nathan’s rifle, if you can zoom in, you can read a little more on it.

Their gift shop was also small and cutesy and I spent a lot of money there on books. On display there, they had an old piece of wood from the original house. I got a published copy of Reverend John Hale’s, A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft.

If anyone wasn’t aware, Reverend John Hale (Nathan Hale’s great grandfather) was called to Salem, Massachusetts from Beverly to assist in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. He was partially responsible for the persecution of several innocent people however, nearing the end of the trials, he began to disagree with the accusations. He published this firsthand account to condemn the actions of those involved with the trials and I’ve always thought it was so interesting. I’ve wanted to read this since I read The Crucible back in high school and i was very excited to see it at the gift shop.

You can also visit the Hale Farm in Beverly, MA where Rev. John Hale used to live and I want to someday. I’ve only ever been outside of it, I’ve never properly visited for a tour. (Cutesy fact as well: Rev. John’s Hale’s birthday is June 3rd, which is only 3 days before Nathan’s).

Final Thoughts:

The Hale Family was absolutely MASSIVE. Our tour guide mentioned being a descendant of the Hale Family and im sure a number of “born and raised” New England residents are as well somewhere in their ancestry. Based on the drawn family tree, most of the members had probably 4 kids minimum and then those kids all had a ton of kids. It’s also very funny to me how there are probably several Hale’s who are decently significant figures in history and it’s just wild that it’s all one family. I know it’s the same for royal families and such but it feels different somehow.

According to our tour guide, one theory about how Nathan Hale was captured was by Robert Rogers. That Rogers invited him to dinner and convinced Nathan that he was also part of the Continental Army. Nathan then confided his mission in Rogers and was lured into a false sense of security that lead to him being captured. Which is another one for the Turn baddies that almost made me die when I heard it. Especially since I don’t believe I’ve heard that theory before.

Something I did really enjoy about this tour was how it didn’t completely focus on Nathan. Of course that would have been fine and equally as interesting, but it was mainly a lesson on his family and some of his descendants. After being taught about Nathan Hale so many times, I had no idea about his entire family and his siblings.

It also never TRULY occurred to me that there aren’t any real portraits of Nathan Hale. They’ve all been artist renditions as paintings or statues based on historical descriptions of him and something about that is extremely wild to me. It makes me somewhat grateful for our easy access to camera and video in our modern world. There are so many faces and stories that have been completely lost to time - even some very significant historical figures have little to no surviving images. Like, we know who they are and that they were here at some point - we have their belongings and things that they used. Thats why seeing Nathan’s rifle in the bedroom or Enoch’s stein in the sitting room cause me to have such visceral reactions. This was theirs once. This was used by someone probably everyday. And now its almost like a ghost or memory of them. The land around the property is heavily wooded as well, lots of trees and stones. My sister and I took a short walk around the property before leaving and it really made me think: how many of these stones did they touch? How many of these large trees did they lean on? It drives me so insane honestly.

One last thing that hadn’t occurred to me before this trip was how the Hale family learned of Nathan’s hanging. According to the tour guide, Enoch and a couple his brothers had heard of a Hale being found guilty of espionage and being hanged. And after looking into it more, Enoch did confirm that it was Nathan and sent word to the rest of the family. It’s said that before being hanged, Nathan only asked for a few things: A priest (which he did not get), parchment, quill and ink for writing. He wrote a letter to his commanding officer and one to his family. According to the guide, i believe neither one was sent. Perhaps the one to the officer was sent, however he never received it because he was killed in battle before he had the chance. And allegedly, the one written to the Hale family was seized by the British and was likely used as a written confession rather than being sent home to Nathan’s family. I honestly can’t imagine how upsetting that must’ve been for all of them. Especially with each of the Hale brothers being in the war and likely all in different places, there wasn’t really any other way for them to find out that their own brother was hanged aside from the way everyone else learned of it - through the newspaper or by word of mouth. No other Hale brother died in the war either, they all survived and had relatively high rankings by the time the war was over.

~~~

So that was my trip, it was fun and informative and I would really love to visit again sometime. I highly recommend anyone who is a fan of history, or Turn: Washington’s Spies to visit if you can! They are only open seasonally though, and only on weekends. They do a tour every hour, so plan accordingly if you want to visit!

#amrev #turn amc #george washington #ben tallmadge #nathan hale #hale homestead #coventry #Connecticut #american revolution #turn washington's spies #abe woodhull #caleb brewster #hale family #hamilton #american history #historical #1700s #new england

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blueiscoool · 10 months ago

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An Unbroken 1,700-year-old Roman Egg Found in England

A three-dimensional scan of a 1,700-year-old egg discovered at a Roman site in England reveals that, eggs-traordinarily, it still has the remains of a yolk and egg white inside.

It's thought to be the only time a centuries-old chicken egg found with its insides preserved.

"We were absolutely blown away when we saw the contents in there, as we might have expected them to have leached out," Edward Biddulph, a senior project manager at the private company Oxford Archaeology, told BBC News.

The egg was one of four found several years ago during an archaeological excavation of a Roman-era site in the central English town of Aylesbury, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of Oxford. Three of the fragile eggs fractured as they were unearthed, releasing a "potent stench," but the fourth remained intact.

Now, the surviving egg has been scanned at the University of Kent with microscopic computed tomography (micro-CT), in which many X-ray scans are compiled digitally to make a virtual 3D model. "It produced an amazing image that indicated that the egg, apart from being intact — which is incredible enough — also retained its liquid inside, presumably deriving from the yolk, albumen etc," as well as an air bubble, Biddulph said.

Roman eggs

The eggs were found in a waterlogged pit at the Aylesbury site, which was being excavated by Oxford Archaeology ahead of a housing development. The archaeologists found evidence of habitation there dating back to the Neolithic period, and the pit dated from the third century A.D., when England was a part of the Roman Empire.

According to a statement from Oxford Archaeology, the pit was first used for malting grain and brewing ale, but it was later filled with water and became a place where passersby could throw in coins and other items as offerings to the gods for good luck.

Organic objects usually rot away when exposed to oxygen, but here many were preserved by the waterlogged soil. As well as the eggs, which seem to have been an offering of some sort, the pit contained a wooden basket, leather shoes, and wooden vessels and tools.

Although Roman-era eggshells have been found before — often in graves, where eggs were thought to be suitable offerings — this seems to be the first time a complete Roman-era egg has been found in Britain. The only other Roman-era egg to survive intact was found in the hand of a dead infant buried near the Vatican, according to The History Blog. But it contained no liquids; archaeologists think it represented rebirth after the premature death of the baby.

The Oxford Archaeology statement noted that the Romans often ascribed symbolic meanings to eggs; they were associated with the gods Mithras and Mercury and had connotations of fertility and rebirth.

The intact egg from Aylesbury was taken to the Natural History Museum in London, where experts were consulted about how to conserve it without breaking it. Senior bird curator Douglas Russell told BBC News that the museum had a collection of mummified bird eggs excavated from the catacombs of sacred animals in Egypt that might be older.

"However, this is the oldest unintentionally preserved avian egg I have ever seen," he said. "That makes it fascinating."

The egg is now back at a museum in Aylesbury, where archaeologists are trying to work out how to extract the contents without breaking the shell.

By Tom Metcalfe.

#An Unbroken 1700-year-old Roman Egg Found in England #Aylesbury #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #roman history #roman empire

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