John P. Hale
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Image:John Parker Hale by Brady.jpg John Parker Hale (March 31, 1806 - November 19, 1873) was an American politician.
Hale was born in Rochester, Strafford County, New Hampshire. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1827. He received an LL.D from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.<ref name="ray">Biography of Eugene Hale</ref> After passing the bar examination, Hale lived and practiced law in Dover, NH; his house is now part of the Woodman Institute, a local museum.
He was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth Congress, serving from March 4, 1843 to March 3, 1845. He was later elected as a Free Soil candidate to the United States Senate in 1846 and served from March 4, 1847, to March 3, 1853. He was among the strongest opponents of the Mexican-American War in the Senate.
Hale was an unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States on the Free Soil ticket in 1852. (See U.S. presidential election, 1852.)
He was again elected to the Senate in 1855 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Charles G. Atherton. He was re-elected in 1859, in total serving from July 30, 1855, to March 3, 1865. He served as the chair of the Senate Republican Conference until 1862.
President Lincoln nominated Hale to the post of ambassador to Spain and he served in that capacity 1865–1869.<ref name="ambassador">United States Department of State list of ambassadors</ref>
Interestingly, Hale's daughter Lucy Hale was betrothed to John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's assassin. Booth had a picture of Lucy Hale with him when he was killed in 1865.<ref name="booth">Ford’s Theater National Historic Site – National Park Service</ref> Today, portraits of President Lincoln and John Hale hang next to each other in the chambers of the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
John Parker Hale is buried in Dover at the Pine Hill Cemetery.
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| Preceded by: Martin Van Buren | Free Soil Party Presidential candidate 1852 (lost) | Succeeded by: none |
| Preceded by: Gustavus Koerner | U.S. Ambassador to Spain 1865–1869 | Succeeded by: Daniel E. Sickles |
