Scoville Library presents the Connecticut State Historian on Nathan Hale

Contributed photo

 

The "Burning Question" about New Haven's own Nathan Hale is of interest as he is New Haven's own because he graduated from Yale University. (And there's a school named for him and a Fort Nathan Hale)

 

The Salisbury Association Historical Society and the Scoville Memorial Library will present Connecticut State Historian Walter W. Woodward, on "The Burning Question about Nathan Hale" at 4 p.m. April 11 in the Wardell Room, Scoville Memorial  Library, 38 Main St., Salisbury, according to a release.

According to Woodward,  author, Connecticut State Historian  and professor of history at University of Connecticut, "It is well known  today that there is some question about whether Connecticut state hero Nathan Hale at the time of his hanging actually said the words for which he is famous, 'I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.'"

"A recently discovered manuscript casts doubt on Hale's truthfulness at the time of his capture as a patriot spy on Long Island in the late summer of 1776," the release says.

"Was there a connection between Hale and the great fire which nearly destroyed New York City the day before his capture? Historian Walt Woodward a scholar of early American and Atlantic world history examines all these issues, especially the question as to whether Hale was an arsonist,  and provides new insight into Hale's life, death, and very
real heroism," the release says.   

Woodward is the author of “Prospero’s America: John Winthrop,Jr., Alchemy and the Creation of New England Culture 1606-­1676”. 

The April 11  presentation is a collaboration between the Salisbury Association
Historical Society and the Scoville Memorial Library, the release said.