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[Babcock, James Staunton]. Memoir of Captain Nathan Hale. New Haven: Printed by S. Babcock, 1844. First edition. 8vo, original printed blue wrappers, 16 pages.
Per printed note on the front wrapper, “For the Hale Monument Association,” this copy with a gift inscription from the association’s secretary, “George Beach Esq. with respects of John W. Boynton, Sec. Hale Mem. Assc.”
The process of turning Nathan Hale- “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”- into a legend had begun almost as soon as he was hung by the British in 1776; it was, however, the particular genius of early-mid 19th century America to establish memorials and monuments (viz. the Bunker Hill monument, started in 1848; or even Mount Auburn Cemetery, founded in 1831, etc.) and it only made sense that Hale- about whose death Babcock remarks, “No stone, no memorial- not a single identifying token, marks the lonely grave of Hale. The fatal tree has been cut away, the ground desecrated, the spot long lost”- would deserve his own monument. Alas, the organization was founded in late 1836, shortly before the Panic of 1837, and it wasn’t until 1846 that the monument was erected in Coventry, Conn.
Babcock (1815-1847) was a young Connecticut scholar and poet of the up-from-rude-circumstances school who early succumbed to consumption (Sabin 2573).
