Alexander Ritchie (1863-1946)
Oil on canvas, ca.1917
180.2337.05
Connecticut Artists of the 20th Century
Highlights
Gallery Highlights
William Ashby McCloy, (1913-2000)
Oil on board, c. 1947
180.0601
Throughout his life, Bill McCloy inserted his image into his work. He examined and documented his mortality and the changes age imposed upon his visage and body. His personal renderings extracted all sentimentality and reflected an unflinching self view. As a result, it is possible to track the virile and powerful young man in youth and prime, as well as the diminishing, aged artist in old age.
Frank Gardner Hale (1876-1945)
Cabochon-cut tourmaline, sapphire, citrine and silver, c. 1910
170.S.0107
Frank, a member of one of the earliest classes of the Norwich Art School, also graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He first worked as a designer of book and music covers and bookplates, and then devoted himself to crafts. He joined the English Guild of Handicraft with Charles Robert Ashbee (GB 1863–1942)). After studying silversmithing and enamelling there, he went to London to work on jewelry with Frederick Partridge, considered by the Ashbees to be the most skillful jeweler of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Oil on canvas, n.d.
180.0338
Ellis W. Ruley, (1882-1959)
Enamel house paint on cardboard
180.1183
He worked as a mason’s assistant and in other construction-related jobs. A car in which he was riding from a work site and a local lumber company truck collided, leaving him injured. A settlement of $25,000 in 1929 made it possible for him to devote the rest of his life to establishing a lifestyle out of reach of most Americans during The Great Depression and, eventually, to painting.
George Adams (d.1965)
Oil on canvas, n.d.
Gift of Carol M. Adams
180.2406
Charlotte Fuller Eastman, (1878-1965)
Oil on artists’ board, n.d.
180.0683
Helen F. Newton (1878-1970)
Oil on canvas, 1924
Gift of Harleigh Thayer Knott in Memory of Helen F. Newton
180.1793
Milton R. Bellin (1913-1997)
Egg tempera on masonite, 1935
Gift of Thorne Goldfaden Bellin
180.1247
Captain Nathan Hale (1755 - 1776) Spy and State Hero
By Rev. Edward Everett Hale
Nathan Hale, a martyr soldier of the American Revolution, was born in Coventry, Connecticut, June 6, 1755. When little more than twenty-one years old, he was hanged as a spy, by order of General William Howe in the city of New York on September 22, 1776.
At the great centennial celebration of the Revolution, and the part which the State of Connecticut bore in it, an immense assembly of the people of Connecticut, on the heights of Groton, took measures for the erec-tion of a statue in Hale’s honor. Their wish has been carried out by their agents in the government of the State. A bronze statue of Hale is in the State Capitol. Another bronze statue has been erected in the front of the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford. Another is in the city of New York.
Nathan Hale’s father was Richard Hale, who had emigrated to Coventry, from Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1746, and had married Elizabeth, the daughter of Joseph Strong. By her he had twelve children, of whom Nathan was the sixth.
Richard Hale was a prosperous and successful farmer. He sent to Yale College at one time his two sons, Enoch and Nathan, who had been born within two years of each other. Yale was under the direction of Dr. Daggett. Both the young men enjoyed study, and Nathan, at the exercises of Commencement Day took what is called a pert indicating that he was among the thirteen scholars of highest rank in his class.
From the record of the college society to which he belonged, it appears he was interested in theatrical performance. Drama was not dis-couraged by the college govern-ment, and was made a recognized part of the amusements of the college and the town. Many of the lighter plays brought forward on the English stage were produced by the pupils of Yale College for the entertainment of the people of New Haven.
When he graduated, at the age of eighteen, Hale probably intended at some time to become a Christian minister, as his brother Enoch did. But, as was almost a custom of the time, he began his active life as a teacher in the public schools, and early in 1774 accepted an appointment as the teacher of the Union Grammar School, a school maintained by the gentlemen of New London, Connecticut, for the higher education of their children. Of thirty-two pupils, he said, “ten are Latiners and all but one of the rest are writers.”
In his commencement address Hale questioned whether or not the higher education of women had been neglected. The Union School arranged for Hale to teach a class of “twenty young ladies” between the hours of five and seven in the morning the same studies which occupied their brothers at a later hour.
He was thus engaged in the year 1774 while all of the colonies were alive with the movements and discussions which came to a crisis in the battle of Lexington the next year. Hale, though not of age, enrolled in the militia and became active in the military organization of the town.
As soon as the news of Lexington and Concord reached New London, a town-meeting was called, and Hale, not yet of age, spoke. “Let us march immediately,” he said, “and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence.” He assembled his school as usual the next day, but only to take leave of his scholars. “He gave them earnest counsel, prayed with them, shook each by hand, and bade them farewell.”
It is said that there is no other record so early as this in which the word “independence” was publicly spoken. The uncalculating courage of a boy of twenty broke a spell which still gave dignity to colonial submission.
Commissioned as First Lieutenant in the Seventh Connecticut Regiment, Hale resigned his teaching post. The first duty assigned to the regiment was in the neighborhood of New London, where, probably, they were perfecting their discipline. On September 14, 1775, they were ordered by Washington to Cambridge, placed on the left wing of his army, and camped at the foot of Winter Hill. This was the post which commanded the passage from Charlestown, one of only two roads by which the English could march from Boston. Here they remained until the next spring. Hale provides interesting details of the great victory during which Washington and his officers changed a force of minute-men, which had overawed Boston in 1775, into a regular army. Hale re-enlisted, and then went back to Coventry to recruit, from his old school companions, soldiers for the war. After a month of such effort at home, he returned with a body of troops to Roxbury.
On January 30th his regiment was removed to the right wing in Roxbury where they joined the successful night enterprise of March 4th and 5th which drove the English troops from Boston.
As soon as the English army left the country, Washington knew that their next point of attack would be New York and sent most of his army there, Webb’s regiment among the rest. They were first assigned to the Canada army, but because they had many seafaring men, they were reserved for service near New York, where their “web-footed” character served them well more than once that summer. Hale marched with the regiment to New London, whence they went by water to New York. On that critical night, when the whole army was moved across to New York after the defeat at Brooklyn, the regiment rendered effective service.
It was at this period that Hale planned an attack, made by members of his own company, to set fire to the frigate, Phoenix. The frigate was saved, but one of her tenders and four cannons and six swivels were taken. Washington thanked, praised, and rewarded the men while the frigate, with her companions, not caring to risk such attacks again, retired to the Narrows. Soon after this brush with the enemy, Colonel Knowlton, one of the Connecticut regiment leaders, organized a special corps, known as Knowlton’s Rangers. On the rolls of their own regiments, the officers and men are spoken of as “detached on command.” They received orders direct from Washington and Putnam and kept close in front of the enemy, watching their movement from the American line in Harlem. It was in this service, on September 15th, that Knowlton’s Rangers, with three Virginia companies, in an open fight drove the English troops from their position. It was a spirited action, a real victory for the attacking force. Knowlton and Leitch, the leaders, were both killed. In his general orders Washington spoke of Knowlton as a gallant and brave officer who would have been an honor to any country.
Hale did not fight at Knowlton’s side. He had been “detached for special service.” Washington had been driven up the island of New York, and was holding his place with difficulty. On September 6th he wrote, “We have not been able to obtain the least information as to the enemy’s plans.” In sheer despair at the need for information better than the Tories of New York City would give him, the great commander consulted his council, and at their direction summoned Knowlton to ask for some volunteer of intelligence, who would find his way into the English lines and bring back tidings that could be relied upon. Knowlton summoned a number of officers, and repeated the wishes of their chief. The appeal was received with dead silence. It is said that Knowlton personally addressed a non-commissioned officer, a Frenchman, who was an old solider. He did so only to receive the natural reply, “I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung.” Knowlton felt that he must report his failure to Washington when Nathan Hale, his youngest captain, broke the silence. “I will undertake it,” he said. He had come late to the meeting. He was pale from recent sickness. But he saw an opportunity to serve, and he did the duty which came next at hand.
William Hull, afterward the major-general who commanded at Detroit, had been Hale’s college classmate. He remonstrated with his friend about the danger of the task and the ignominy which would attend failure. “He said to him that it was not in the line of his duty, and that he was of too frank and open a temper to act successfully the part of a spy, or to face its dangers, which would probably lead to a disgraceful death.” Hale replied, “I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claim to perform that service are imperious.” These are the last words of his which can be cited until those which he spoke at the moment of his execution. He promised to consider Hull’s arguments, but Hull never heard from him again.
In the second week of September he left the camp for Stamford with Stephen Hempstead, a sergeant in Webb’s regiment who provides the last direct account of Hale’s journey. With Hempstead and Asher Wright, who was his servant in camp, he left behind his uniform and other articles of property. He crossed to Long Island in citizen’s dress, and, as Hempstead thought, took him his college diploma, meaning to assume the aspect of a Connecticut schoolmaster visiting New York in hopes of establishing himself. He landed near Huntington, or Oyster Bay, and directed the boatman to return at a fixed time, the 20th of September. He made his way into New York, and there, for a week or more, apparently made inquiries. He returned on the day fixed, and awaited his boat to return. It appeared, as he thought; and he made a signal from the shore.
He was mistaken. It was an English frigate, which lay screened by a point of woods, and had come in for water. Hale attempted to retrace his steps but was too late. He was seized and examined. Hidden in the soles of his shoes were his memoranda written in Latin. They compromised him at once. He was carried on board the frigate, and sent to New York the same day, well guarded.
It was an unfortunate moment to expect tenderness from General Howe. Hale landed while the city was in the terror of the great conflagration of September 21st which had destroyed nearly a quarter of the town. The English supposed, rightly or not, that Americans had started the fire. The bells had been taken from the churches by order of the Provincial Congress. The fire-engines were out of order, and for a time, it seemed impossible to check the flames. Two hundred persons were sent to jail upon the supposition that they were incendiaries. It is in the midst of such confusion that Hale was taken to General Howe’s head-quarters to meet his doom.
No testimony could be stronger against him than the papers on his person. He was not there to prevaricate, and he told them his rank and name. There was no trial, and Howe at once ordered that he should be hanged the next morning. Worse, had Hale known it, he was to be hanged by William Cunningham, the Provost-Major, a man whose brutality, throughout the war had disgraced the British army. Ironically Cunningham was hanged for his deeds in England, not many years after.
Hale was confined for the night of September 21st in the greenhouse of the garden of Howe’s head-quarters. This place was known as the Beekman Mansion, at Turtle Bay.
Early the next day he was led to his death. “On the morning of the execution,” said Captain Montresor, an English officer, “my station being near the fatal spot, I requested the Provost-Marshal to permit the prisoner to sit in my marquee while he was making the necessary preparations. Captain Hale entered. He asked for writing materials, which I furnished him. He wrote two letters: one to his mother and one to a brother officer. The Provost-Marshal destroyed the letters, and assigned a reason that the rebels should not know that they had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness.”
Hale asked for a Bible, but his request was refused. He was marched out by a guard and was hanged upon an apple-tree in Rutgers’s orchard near the present intersection of East Broadway and Market Streets. Cunningham asked him to make his dying “speech and confession.”
“I only regret,” he said, “that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
The visual reference to the martyred Jesus is strikingly evident in The Death of Nathan Hale. Michelangelo’s Florentine Pieta could have served as the compositional model for The Death of Nathan Hale. While the figures of the British soldiers appear menacing, the patriot clutching paper reflects the sup-pressed will of the people. An African American man, representing the most op-pressed group in both the Revolutionary and Depression eras, appears to employ the utmost care in lowering the martyr’s body.
Virtually every Connecticut school child knows the legend of the American patriot Nathan Hale’s bravery and his words before his hanging by the British.
Gallery Guide
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Oil on canvas, n.d.
180.0338
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Oil on canvas, n.d.
180.0337
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Oil on canvas, n.d.
180.0246
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Oil on canvas, n.d.
180.0348
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0323
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0224
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0162
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0443
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.L.0225
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0208
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0210
(now known as Allis House, NFA)
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0447
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
Gift of William Jacobson
200.E.0444
181 Washington St., Norwich
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0322
Ozias Dodge (1868-1925)
Etching
200.E.0229
Helen F. Newton (1878-1970)
Oil on canvas, 1924
Gift of Harleigh Thayer Knott in memory of Helen F. Newton
180.1793
Helen F. Newton (1878-1970)
Oil on canvas,ca. 1925
180.2309
19th century
190.0087
Frank T. Novack (1940-)
Oil on canvas, 1973
180.0657
Ruth Sussler (1928-)
Oil on canvas, n.d.
180.0752