New England Ancestors

The Hale and Hammond families are both early New England families, with our Hale line coming from Samuel Hale who arrived before 1634 and settled in Wetherfield, Connecticut. The first Hammond of our lineage to come to America was Thomas Hammond who was granted land at Hingham, Mass. in 1636, and later lived in Newton, Mass. Both families enlarged and scattered but our lineage continued in Massachusetts and Connecticut until after the Revolutionary War. Details of this are recorded elsewhere in the History and Genealogies of the Hammond Families of America[15] and in Hale chronicles and historical writings.

The towns of New England which are known to figure in the later history of these New England families are Glastonbury, Conn., eight miles south of Hartford on the east bank of the Connecticut River; Bolton, Conn.; and Coventry, Conn., all close to Hartford.

The first intermarriage of which we have record between our Hale and Hammond lines is that of Jason Hammond to Rachel Hale, eldest daughter of Theodore Hale and Rachel Talcott, celebrated April 24th, 1788, at Glastonbury, Conn. Jason was the eldest son of Nathaniel Hammond, and a brother to our direct ancestor, Calvin Hammond.

In the direct lineage of Orson Ward Hammond there is no record of Revolutionary War (D.A.R.) patriots by the Hale or Hammond names but two patriots are represented by parents of wives of the Hale family, Col. Elizur Talcott, father of Rachel Talcott, who married Theodore Hale, 1758, and Sgt. Samuel Piper, father of Mercy S. Piper who married Jonathan Hale on July 11, 1802.

The Jonathan Hale Home in Bath, Ohio, has an introductory videotape for visitors with bits of the Hale-Hammond story.