Hale was born on April 3, 1822, in
Boston,
Massachusetts, the son of
Nathan Hale (1784–1863), proprietor and editor of the
Boston Daily Advertiser, and
Sarah Preston Everett; and the brother of
Lucretia Peabody Hale,
Susan Hale, and
Charles Hale. Edward Hale was a nephew of
Edward Everett, the orator and statesman, and grand-nephew of
Nathan Hale (1755–1776), the Revolutionary War hero executed by the British for espionage. Edward Everett Hale was also a descendant of
Richard Everett and related to
Helen Keller. Hale was a
child prodigy who exhibited extraordinary literary skills. He graduated from
Boston Latin School at age 13 and enrolled at
Harvard College immediately after. There, he settled in with the literary set, won two
Bowdoin Prizes and was elected the Class Poet. and then studied at
Harvard Divinity School. Decades later, he reflected on the new liberal theology there: Hale was licensed to preach as a
Unitarian minister in 1842 and he would be involved with the society for the rest of his life, taking up various positions in the service of the society. He served two non-consecutive terms on its board of councilors, from 1852 to 1854, and a lengthy term from 1858 to 1891, and as recording secretary from 1854 to 1858. He served as vice-president of the society from 1891 to 1906, served a shorter term as president from 1906 to 1907, then again took up the position of vice-president from 1907 to 1909. Hale first came to notice as a writer in 1859, when he contributed the short story "My Double and How He Undid Me" to the
Atlantic Monthly. He soon published other stories in the same periodical. His best known work was "
The Man Without a Country", published in the
Atlantic in 1863 and intended to strengthen support for the Union cause in the North. In 1870, he was elected as a member to the
American Philosophical Society. In recognition of his support for the Union during the
American Civil War, Hale was elected as a Third Class Companion of the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Hale assisted in founding the
Christian Examiner, Old and New in 1869 and became its editor. In the early 1880s
Harriet E. "Hattie" Freeman became one of Hale's volunteer secretaries. Her family had been connected with Hale's church since 1861. As Hattie and Hale worked together they grew closer and closer. According to historian Sara Day, their relationship became loving and intimate. Day came to this conclusion after studying 3,000 Hale-Freeman love letters (1884–1909) held by the Library of Congress. The letters, donated to the library in 1969, had held their secrets until 2006 when Day realized that the intimate passages were written in Towndrow's shorthand. In 1886, Hale founded
Lend a Hand, which merged with the
Charities Review in 1897, and the
Lend a Hand Record. On November 20, 1891, Hale founded the Ten Times One Corporation to implement the ideas laid out in the original story. In 1898, the organization changed its name to
Lend A Hand Society, and continues to serve those in need in the Boston, MA area. He was awarded
American Library Association Honorary Membership in 1895. Hale retired as minister from the South Congregational Church in 1899 and chose as his successor Edward Cummings, father of
E. E. Cummings. By the turn of the century, Hale was recognized as among the nation's most important men of letters. Bostonians asked him to help ring in the new century on December 31, 1900, by presenting a psalm on the balcony of the
Massachusetts State House. In 1903 he became
Chaplain of the United States Senate, and joined the
Literary Society of Washington. The next year, he was elected as a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Also in 1904, he was one of several high-profile investors who backed the
Intercontinental Correspondence University, but the institution folded by 1915. Hale lived from 1869 to his death at the
Edward Everett Hale House in Roxbury. He maintained a
summer home in
South Kingstown, Rhode Island where he and his family often spent summer months. Hale died in Roxbury, by then part of Boston, in 1909. He was buried at
Forest Hills Cemetery in
Jamaica Plain, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. A life-size likeness in
bronze statue memorializing the man and his works stands in the
Boston Public Garden. ==Beliefs==