Robert Safford Hale

Robert Safford Hale (September 24, 1822 – December 14, 1881) was a United States Representative from New York and a prominent lawyer and jurist in the mid-nineteenth century. He was born in Chelsea, Orange County, Vermont, where he spent his early years before pursuing formal education in the region. He attended South Royalton Academy in South Royalton, Vermont, a leading local preparatory institution of the period, which provided the classical foundation for his later legal and public career.

Hale continued his education at the University of Vermont in Burlington, from which he was graduated in 1842. After completing his collegiate studies, he read law in the customary manner of the time and prepared for admission to the bar. He subsequently moved to New York and, in 1847, was admitted to the bar. That same year he commenced the practice of law in Elizabethtown, Essex County, New York, a community that would remain his principal residence and professional base for the rest of his life.

Hale’s legal ability and standing in Essex County led to his selection for judicial office. He served as judge of Essex County from 1856 to 1864, presiding over local judicial matters during a period that spanned the years immediately preceding and including much of the Civil War. His interest in education and public institutions was reflected in his election in 1859 as a Regent of the University of the State of New York, a statewide body responsible for oversight of educational standards and institutions. In national politics, he was aligned with the emerging Republican Party, and in the 1860 presidential election he served as a presidential elector for Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, participating in the Electoral College that confirmed Lincoln’s first term.

Hale entered national legislative service during the Reconstruction era. He was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Representative Orlando Kellogg, and he served from December 3, 1866, to March 3, 1867. After returning to private and public legal work for several years, he was again elected to Congress as a Republican, this time to the Forty-third Congress, serving from March 4, 1873, to March 3, 1875. During this latter term he held a significant leadership role as chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, where he was involved in legislative oversight and governance issues affecting the nation’s capital. He was not a candidate for reelection in 1874.

In addition to his congressional service, Hale played an important role in federal legal affairs in the years following the Civil War. From 1868 to 1870 he served as special counsel of the United States charged with the defense of “abandoned and captured property claims,” a body of litigation arising from property seized during the conflict and its aftermath. He subsequently served as agent and counsel for the United States before the American and British Mixed Commission established under the Treaty of Washington, holding that post from 1871 to 1873. In this capacity he represented U.S. interests in the adjudication of claims between the two nations, part of the broader international effort to resolve outstanding disputes after the Civil War and the Alabama claims.

In his later years, Hale continued to be active in public service in New York State. On April 29, 1876, he was appointed a commissioner of the State survey, a position that involved oversight and guidance of surveying and mapping activities within the state. He was serving in this capacity at the time of his death. Hale died in Elizabethtown, New York, on December 14, 1881, and was interred in Riverside Cemetery in that community. Public service was a family tradition; his younger brother, Matthew Hale (1829–1897), served as a New York State Senator and was also a figure of note in state politics and law.