Revolutionary War Ghosts of Connecticut

By Courtney McInvale

The founder of Seaside Shadows Haunted History Tours sheds light on the supernatural stories of the Constitution State.
 
Bloody battlefields and raucous taverns in Connecticut served as the backdrop for pivotal figures and bold actions vital to the American Revolution. Nathan Hale is said to still conduct lessons in New London and East Haddam, and many suspect that George Washington occasionally visits the Shaw Mansion and Fairfield's Sun Tavern. The presence of notorious traitor Benedict Arnold is often felt in the Leffingwell Inn and at Ye Antientist Burial Ground in New London, where he commanded troops numbering 1,600 as a newly turned Loyalist. Picnickers claim to see apparitions of wounded soldiers seated among them at Fort Griswold in Groton. Step foot into a time when the Sons of Liberty, Tories and Patriots changed the course of history as author Courtney McInvale uncovers the Revolutionary haunts of Connecticut.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781625857156

Courtney McInvale

Courtney McInvale is the founder of Seaside Shadows Haunted History Tours, a Connecticut-based company dedicated to the research and sharing of paranormal history and local lore. She is able to bring a unique perspective to the world of ghostly occurrences as a spirit medium who grew up in a haunted house investigated by famed ghost hunters. Courtney is a graduate of Catholic University.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

The phrase the Patriots is one we use frequently here in New England, but in the twenty-first century, it is rarely used within the same regional context it was in the late 1700s. It is not usually in reference to men such as infamous spy Nathan Hale, General George Washington, Samuel Adams (the man and the legacy that influenced the iconic Boston brew), John Hancock (more than just a signature) or any of the Sons of Liberty. Instead, we refer to the American football team the New England Patriots, a household name for many. Rarely do we stop and think about the name Patriot as being iconic to the region, as it represented the earliest thoughts and ideas that bred a nation.

Connecticut, officially known as the Constitution State, has always been at the forefront of eighteenth-century history on this side of the pond known as the Atlantic. Revolutionary names and legacies have become so ingrained into the founding of nearly everything New England has created—so common that its origins innocently pass our minds. However, the origins of the name Patriot as we know it, the world in which these men and women Patriots and their opposition lived, the manner in which they conducted themselves, the war they fought and the legacy every single one of them left behind are palpable throughout early colonies. Connecticut played a pivotal role in the stories of Revolutionaries and Loyalists alike. These lives and their legacies live on in historic sites and artifacts that exist throughout the Constitution State today.

Ask many paranormal investigators what their goal is in looking into a haunted location and they will tell you that they long to learn from someone who came before them. Is it possible that we can learn from the very men and women responsible for the forging of a nation as we know it today through contact with their spirits? Are these spirits at historic sites that they either lived in, frequented or had attachment to? Many visitors, historical interpreters, investigators and more would suggest that indeed they are still there and perhaps that they still have history to teach us.

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Revolutionary War Continental army recruitment poster, circa 1775. Courtesy of the Society of the Founders of Norwich and Leffingwell House Museum.

Many of these Connecticut locations saw men and women who changed the face of America. Travel throughout Connecticut and look into mirrors that General George Washington gazed into during his travels, walk through taverns that Benedict Arnold and the Sons of Liberty frequented, stroll through the halls where John Hancock married his bride (the very same building where Sam Adams was a Revolutionary refugee in a Loyalist region), stand where men lost their lives at the last remaining complete Revolutionary war site and battlefield and walk through the woods where Tory men were exposed and made vulnerable for standing by their king. Meeting rooms, mansions, mill houses and more abound—buildings that stood here when the nation as we know it was forged and witnessed the masterminds behind it. All this lies within the Nutmeg State. In Connecticut, the Revolutionary history and haunts penetrate the land, the vibration sits in the air and the spirits still walk with stories to tell. Travel with the ghosts of the Continental army throughout Connecticut’s rebellious haunts.

NATHAN HALE’S CONNECTICUT STOMPING GROUNDS

TALES FROM THE HOMESTEAD IN COVENTRY, EAST HADDAM SCHOOLHOUSE AND NEW LONDON SCHOOLHOUSE

Nathan Hale is often referred to as the first true American hero, the earliest spy of the Patriot cause and a man of great accomplishment in a brief twenty-one years on earth. The truth is that he was all of those things—not merely a man of myth or legend. Admittedly, it’s difficult for most to fathom that a man, one of twelve siblings raised in small-town eighteenth-century Connecticut by a deacon, could become a stunning athlete, a true academic, a Yale graduate, a teacher who broke the rules and even schooled young women before it was tradition, a soldier and a spy commissioned by George Washington—all in one lifetime. In twenty-one years, Nathan Hale accomplished all of these feats and did Coventry and the state of Connecticut more than proud. Nathan’s legacy is perhaps best immortalized by his final words, as documented by British officers at the time of his capture and hanging: I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

Although some controversy has been met over whether he truly spoke those words, it’s widely acknowledged that Hale was a fan and student of Joseph Addison’s Cato during his studies at Yale, and that is where Hale first became familiar with that quotation. Thus it stands to reason that this very sentiment was likely a true motivator for him. Also, British officers such as Captain William Montresor and Lieutenant Robert MacKensie, who documented his final words, would have no reason to fabricate a saying like this coming from the mouth of Hale. They documented it as a fact, even though they would have had to acknowledge that it would be considered a heroic statement by their opposition.

Fascinatingly enough, Nathan Hale’s legacy wouldn’t truly develop throughout Connecticut and the country until more than a decade after his execution. The Hale family name became recognized, the schoolhouses he taught in were memorialized and the homestead his family built was revived in the early twentieth century. All of this dedication to his cause and name would not be seen until more than a century later, with all of these museums in his name.

Nathan himself wasn’t the only true hero of the family, but to be a brandnew nation’s martyr is an immense legacy and story to tell. Nathan was born on June 6, 1755, in Coventry, Connecticut, and was a sickly infant. His mother and family devoted extra time and nurturing to young Nathan as he began to grow into a healthy, sturdy young boy, and his days of frailty were soon a memory of distant past. The Nathan Hale Homestead, built in 1776, sits in the exact spot where the smaller house Nathan was actually born in once stood. In fact, bits of the foundation woodwork of the former home were utilized in the building of the new home, and the old kitchen was kept as an addition to the new home, including a great part of the former home at that time. The now-old kitchen is considered to be the most dated part of the house and possibly the only part that Nathan would have stepped foot in during his life in Coventry. Construction on the current homestead was not completed until the year of his death, and most of it took place while he was serving in the Revolutionary War. Army records do not indicate vacations or breaks for Nathan during this time. However, some believe that when Nathan was in the area, he stopped back in Coventry to assist in the building of the family homestead.

Nathan’s parents were Deacon Richard Hale and Elizabeth Strong. Nathan Hale was, in fact, a great-grandson of Reverend John Hale from Beverly, Massachusetts, a judge during the famous Salem Witch Trials alongside Samuel Parris. Nathan’s great-grandfather had indeed assisted in the prosecution of witches but later withdrew when accusations were pointed at his own family member. The Hale family’s contribution to the prosecution of innocents was then officially renounced. Nevertheless, this little-known Salem Witch Trial legacy was rarely spoken about by the Hale family in Coventry—and rightfully so, as they changed the legacy of what the Hale family name would come to mean throughout New England.

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Sketch of Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry, circa 1800s. Courtesy of Yale University Library.

Nathan was the sixth of twelve children, one of nine boys in the Hale family—six of whom would go on to fight in the Revolutionary War in some regard. He was considered to be a charmer and was described as both attractive and well-built and muscular. He had great athletic talent in football (which he played at Yale) and had distinct blue eyes and light reddish to brown hair. What’s interesting is that an official portrait was never completed of young Nathan, and only descriptions from journals and portraits of his siblings allow any of us a glimpse as to what he may have looked like. Statues, portraits and more were created over the centuries, immortalizing an idea of his appearance; none of them was made knowing of his likeness, and they are instead artistic renderings. The closest we can get to knowing at least his facial shape is an etching that the Hale family had done of his silhouette on a door after his passing. This door was actually removed from the house years later and salvaged by George Dudley Seymour, who turned the Nathan Hale house into the museum it became, recovered family artifacts, wrote a book of Hale’s life and dedicated his life to the importance of the Coventry site. Once he found it, Seymour actually stole the door alongside an acquaintance and carried it on his back to have the etching uncovered by an expert. When this was done and it was confirmed to show the silhouette of young Nathan, it was said to be the moment Seymour decided to buy the property and resurrect it from the shambles it had been in. The etching can be seen on the door to this very day when touring the museum.

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Portrait of Nathan Hale, circa 1960 and 1970s. Courtesy of the Connecticut Sons of the American Revolution.

Besides good looks and athleticism, Nathan’s aptitude for learning was clear, and he was enrolled in Yale by his father when he was just fourteen years old alongside his brother Enoch, who was then sixteen years old. A charming, handsome, intelligent young man, he graduated at the age of eighteen in 1773 alongside thirty-six other men. One of his most notable classmates was Benjamin Tallmadge, an officer in the Continental army under Washington who went on to lead the Culper spy ring, for which he is popularly known. Tallmadge and Hale, who had become fast and best friends, were also participants in one of the biggest debates of academia at the time: the education of young women (of which they were in favor). However, it is well-documented that it was under Tallmadge’s influence and correspondence that young Nathan joined up for the cause himself.

But not quite yet. After Nathan and Benjamin’s graduation, Tallmadge went on to received employment in Wethersfield as a superintendent in education. As for Hale, his ambition was to teach, and he received his first job offer in East Haddam, Connecticut, a town of country people and farms—not exactly what an ambitious young man was hoping for in regards to environment, yet it was a teaching position where an impact could be made molding young minds. So, Hale took the position and taught in East Haddam for about six months before accepting a job offer in the big city of New London, where he would stay as an instructor for just over a year before his enrollment in the Continental army’s Seventh Connecticut Regiment. The East Haddam Schoolhouse, where Hale taught, remains to the present day, having been moved twice—first located close to the river, then to a nearby church up a road and subsequently, and finally, to its location now in the hillside above the church overlooking the glorious Connecticut River and the environment it has always served. The East Haddam and New London Schoolhouses are owned and operated by the Connecticut Sons of the American Revolution. They are active museums in the community, both named after Nathan Hale, and can be visited today; they filled with information on Hale and the schoolhouse past.

As for Hale, he documented immense boredom in East Haddam and was eagerly applying to other towns while he worked there. A young man, he desired a city, which he can’t be blamed for, but for six months he was a schoolmaster for the young men in central Connecticut of varying ages. It’s unknown whether Hale began his unprecedented education of young women while in East Haddam or if that came into play later, when he was in New London, but it is indeed possible that he was the inaugural schoolmaster to teach girls of East Haddam. East Haddam schooling hours would’ve been different than in the city. The children were often expected to work on the surrounding family farms first thing in the morning and in the early evening—leaving only midday for lessons or just after morning chores. Farm life and education had to work in tandem with each other for parents to support the local education, and the parents had to pay for everything their child utilized and even a portion of the heating costs for the school. If parents could not afford that, a child in the eighteenth century was not required to go to school and thus usually didn’t. Later on, of course, in encouraging education, parents would be fined for not sending their child to school.

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Nathan Hale Schoolhouse in East Haddam, circa 1940. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Nevertheless, after a brief semester in East Haddam, Hale moved to bigger and (to him, at least) better things in the big city of New London, where he could have a social life, court the ladies, participate in rebel discussion and educate at a much larger schoolhouse. He became the preceptor of Union School, a school funded by trustees Nathaniel and Lucretia Shaw, to whom he would become of great acquaintance.