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East Haddam Revolutionary Heroes
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Welcome to Nathan Hale Park
Nathan Hale Park was dedicated on June 6, 1900 by the Society of the Sons of the Revolution who declared it Nathan Hale Day!
Nathan Hale
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This is a digital reconstruction of Nathan Hale’s face based on the 1893 bronze statue by Frederick William MacMonnies which stands in City Hall Park, New York City. The statue was commissioned by the Sons of the Revolution of New York, and as no portrait or sketch of Nathan Hale ever existed, MacMonnies conjured an idealized version of a handsome, young man educated at Yale College.
Cheryl Daniel Boitnott (Digital Yarbs - yarbs.net)
Commissioned by the town of East Haddam, this bronze statue of Nathan Hale by Enoch Smith Woods (b.1846 d. 1919) is located at the original site of the East Haddam schoolhouse (where Nathan Hale taught). The bust was unveiled by Mrs. Marcellus Hartley (great grandniece of Nathan Hale) of New York on June 6, 1900, during a day-long celebration of Nathan Hale. Enoch Smith Woods was originally from Nova Scotia but lived in Hartford from the early 1880s until 1901 when he moved to New Hampshire. This is his second statue of Nathan Hale – the first from 1889 stands near the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. He also sculpted Colonel Thomas Knowlton in 1895, currently standing at the entrance to the State Capitol.
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Sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt was born in Norwich, CT in 1867. His grandfather, Oramel Whittlesey, founded the Music Vale Seminary in 1835 (Salem, CT) which was the first music school in the United States to grant music education degrees. Bela graduated from Yale in 1883, 110 years after Nathan Hale. His statue of Nathan Hale was originally commissioned in 1901 for the 200th anniversary of Yale, but it was not completed until 1914. Pratt asked an East Haddam man, Crary Brownell, to pose for his depiction of Nathan Hale. The statue stands on the Yale University campus in New Haven, CT adjacent to Connecticut Hall, the only building remaining from Nathan Hale’s time at Yale. Three other casts of Pratt’s statue exist – at the C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, VA; in front of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C.; and in front of the Tribune Tower in Chicago, IL.
Captain James Greene
Captain James Greene, born in 1728 in Barnstable, Massachusetts. He served in the French and Indian War and may have met Joseph Spencer during this time. They were good friends. Captain Greene moved to East Haddam in about 1755 where he married Ruth Winslow Marshall. He served in the Continental Army in the 2nd Connecticut Light Horse at the Battle of White Plains, Rhode Island campaign in late 1776 to assist friend and neighbor Joseph Spencer, Battle of Saratoga in 1777, and then back to Rhode Island.
Captain Greene’s forge in East Haddam made guns for Connecticut troops, and he was appointed the first postmaster in East Haddam. Before the Revolutionary War, a certain young schoolteacher, Nathan Hale, boarded in Captain Greene’s house during the winter of 1773-1774, and Nathan made a great impression on Captain Greene’s family. In particular, he inspired young William Greene to join the Continental Army (unfortunately he was captured and died on the prison ship Wallabout). Hannah Greene, James Greene’s oldest child, always recalled Nathan Hale fondly. She went on to marry Joseph Hungerford who marched with Joseph Spencer in 1775. Greene’s youngest daughter, Nancy, married Joseph Spencer’s son, Jared, further solidifying the long standing friendship between Captain James Greene and Major General Joseph Spencer, for now they shared grandchildren. (see “Greene Family of Plymouth Colony” by Richard Henry Greene, 1903, great grandson of Captain James Greene)
Major General Joseph Spencer
Painted portrait of Major General Joseph Spencer by Charles Noel Flagg based on a sepia sketch by John Trumbull. Trumbull was Spencer’s Aide-de-Camp during the Siege of Boston in 1775.
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Spencer Monument created by Stephen Maslan of Hartford, CT. Dedicated June 22, 1904.