Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was born and died in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Boston Latin School at age 13 and graduated from Harvard College in 1839. He studied at Harvard Divinity School before becoming licensed to preach as a Unitarian minister in 1842, and in 1846 he became pastor of the Church of the Unity in Worcester, Massachusetts. Hale married Emily Baldwin Hale (b. Perkins) in 1852. He left the Church of the Unity in 1856 to become pastor at the South Congregational Church, Boston, where he served until 1899. Hale was a member of the American Antiquarian Society, where he served as president, vice-president, recording secretary, and was on its board of councilors at various times. He assisted in founding the Christian Examiner, Old and New in 1869 and became its editor. Hale was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1870, and he founded Lend a Hand magazine in 1886. In 1903, he became Chaplain of the United States Senate, which he remained until his passing, and joined the Literary Society of Washington. The next year, he was elected as a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Throughout his life he contributed many articles on a variety of subjects to numerous periodicals including the North American Review, the Atlantic Monthly, the Christian Register, and the Outlook. Hale used his writings to advance a number of social reforms, including religious tolerance, the abolition of slavery, and wider public education. He was the author or editor of more than sixty books - fiction, travel, sermons, biography and history. A bronze statue memorializing Hale and his works stands in the Boston Public Garden. Mary Baker Eddy was introduced to Hale through Josephine Curtis Woodbury, a student of hers.

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