Salma Hale

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Salma Hale (March 7, 1787 - November 19, 1866) was a United States Representative from New Hampshire. He was born in Alstead, New Hampshire. He became a printer and in 1805 edited the Walpole Political Observatory. He studied law and was appointed clerk of the court of common pleas of Cheshire County. He moved to Keene, New Hampshire in 1813.

Hale was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Fifteenth Congress (March 4, 1817-March 3, 1819). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1818. After leaving Congress, he was clerk of the New Hampshire Supreme Court 1817-1834. He was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1823, 1828, and again in 1844 and served in the New Hampshire Senate in 1824, 1825, and again in 1845 and 1846. He was admitted to the bar in October 1834. Diplomatically, he served as the secretary to the commission appointed under the Treaty of Ghent for determining the northeastern boundary line of the United States. He died in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1866 and was buried in Woodland Cemetery in Keene.

Salma Hale was also the author of a popular early US History textbook, History of the United States of America, which was published in several editions between 1820 and 1848. The earlier editions of the book used his pseudonymn, "A Citizen of Massachusetts." In the 1846 and later editions, his name is printed as the author.

[edit] References

• Salma Hale at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress