For a long time the debate about what Nathan Hale said before he was hanged was whether he said “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country” or “I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

In more recent years, it’s emerged that what he said is probably lost to history, since contemporary accounts aren’t especially clear about it. More accurately, the most reliable-ish contemporary account is second-hand at best, so it’s a History version of the game Telephone. You kids remember telephones, right? I realize that nowadays a telephone is an app on your phone. (Leave me alone, I’m two hundred and six years old.)

By all accounts, Hale comported himself well this day. He almost certainly said more than one sentence. Some have thought that when he said the “regret” line, he was reciting a passage from Joseph Addision’s play Cato, which includes:

How beautiful is death, when earn’d by virtue!
Who would not be that youth? What pity is it
That we can die but once to serve our country.

Many place names and buildings are named after Nathan Hale; one you may not realize comes from him is the town of Halesite on Long Island; until 1899 it was known as Huntington Harbor. In that year it was changed to honor Nathan Hale to mark the area where he first landed on Long Island from Connecticut not long before his capture.

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