Episode # 23 – Natham Hale “One Life” –  September 22, 1776

Nancy Bristow joins Vashon 250 to discuss Nathan Hale hanging as a spy by the British. His supposed last words were “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” While there are questions about the accuracy of these words, Hale became a symbol of American patriotism in the early 19^th Century along with the myth-making of Paul Rever’s Ride and the Boston Tea Party. Hale’s symbolism as an American patriot raises the question of what it means to be a patriot, that has been central to American political struggles. On Vashon Island, a similar question ask “what does it mean to be an islander?”