Nathan Hale Cemetery is one of Coventry’s oldest cemeteries, an early eighteenth century burial ground on seven acres along Lake Wamgumbaug with headstones dating from as early as 1716, including many eighteenth century stones of granite schist, examples of New England funerary art from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and burial plots for the Hale family and many other local families. Its gravestones preserve vital records of village residents and include work by at least sixteen carvers, among them Obadiah Wheeler, Benjamin Collins, and the Manning family, while only four original footstones remain. The cemetery also contains the Nathan Hale Monument, a granite obelisk designed by Henry Austin, completed by Solomon Wiliard, and dedicated on September 19, 1846 after a fifteen year effort led by Coventry townspeople and supporters across New England, with assistance from the State of Connecticut after requests to the United States Government were refused. The monument was raised because Nathan Hale, born in Coventry on June 6, 1755, was buried in an unmarked grave on Manhattan Island after his death. A Yale graduate and New London schoolmaster, he volunteered for military service in 1775, was promoted to captain within a year, undertook a mission to gather information on British forces on Long Island, and was captured and hanged as a spy the next day after declaring, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my Country.”

Photo: Michael Herrick

Photo: Michael Herrick

Photo: Michael Herrick

South Coventry, Connecticut · USA