Charles Hale

Charles Hale (1831–1882) of Boston was a legislator in the Massachusetts state House and Senate intermittently between 1855 and 1877. He was Speaker of the House in 1859. In the 1860s he lived in Cairo, Egypt, as the American consul-general. From 1872 to 1873 he worked as United States Assistant Secretary of State under Hamilton Fish.

Hale was born to Nathan Hale and Sarah Preston Everett. Siblings included Sarah Everett Hale, Nathan Hale Jr., Lucretia Peabody Hale, Edward Everett Hale, Alexander Hale, and Susan Hale.

Issue no.1 of To-Day, January 3, 1852

Charles graduated from Harvard College in 1850; whilst a student he rowed in the Undine Club. He served as class secretary, 1850-1882.

In his early career, Hale worked as a journalist. He founded the short-lived journal To-Day: a Boston Literary Journal in 1852, of which only two volumes were published. He also contributed to his father's paper, the Boston Daily Advertiser, in the 1850s and 1860s. There he started as a reporter after graduation, and was later a junior editor. He also contributed to the North American Review and to the Nautical Almanac.

In 1855, Hale was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives and was chosen Speaker in 1859, up to that time the youngest man ever chosen for the position. He served as U.S. consul-general in Cairo, Egypt, 1864-1870. In Cairo he "arrested the conspirator, John Surratt," suspected of plotting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

In 1871, he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate. He was appointed chairman of the committee on railroads, in which capacity he drew up a general railroad act, and was active in securing its enactment. From 1872 to 1873 he worked as Assistant United States Secretary of State, under Hamilton Fish. He returned to Boston and was again elected to the state House of Representatives in 1876 and 1877. He was also appointed State Commissioner of Public Lands, responsible for "laying out the Back Bay."

During the latter part of his life he lived in retirement, occupied in literary work, and much of the time was an invalid. He died in 1882. A funeral was held at the South Congregational Church on March 4, at 3pm. "Among those present were Mayor Green, the Hon. Robert R. Bishop, President of the State Senate; the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, and other relatives of the deceased man, and also the Senators and Representatives who served during Mr. Hale's term in the Legislature; the members of the Harvard Class of '50, and the employees of the Boston Daily Advertiser." He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

• To-Day: a Boston Literary Journal. v.1 (January–June, 1852); v.2 (July–December, 1852).
• Nathan Hale, Charles Hale, eds. (1853). Journal of debates and proceedings in the Convention of delegates: chosen to revise the constitution of Massachusetts, begun and holden at Boston, November 15, 1820, and continued by adjournment to January 9, 1821, Reported for the Boston Daily Advertiser. Boston: Pub. at the office of the Daily Advertiser.  CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
• "Our houses are our castles": A review of the proceedings of the Nunnery Committee, of the Massachusetts Legislature; and especially their conduct and that of their associates on the occasion of the visit to the Catholic school in Roxbury, March 26, 1855. Boston: C. Hale, at the office of the Boston Daily Advertiser. 1855. 
• Documents in: Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States. Washington DC: Government Printing Office. 1868. 
• "The Khedive and the Court." Atlantic Monthly, May 1876.
• "Municipal Indebtedness." Atlantic Montly, Dec. 1876.