This letter was written to Matthew's niece. Unfortunately this copy does not have the date.

Dear Niece,
Replying to your letter of 17th day of Jan will say that my father's name was John Hale and his father was Zachariah Hale and came from W.Va. or old Va. but I cannot state just which. However, I was informed that the name of the county seat of the county from which he came was Little Rock. This may aid you in getting the state and county by search as to his early location. In Kentucky, he first came to a point in Floyd Co. (Where my father was born) and settled on a water course called Beaver Creek, and left there when my father was about 12 yrs old. Then he settled in Lawrence Co. on a stream called Big Blaine Creek, and at a point near the falls of said creek.

As to his early life, he was a Baptist minister of the old Baptist faith, and always mentioned as matter of family history that he was a direct relative of Nathan Hale of Revolutionary War fame, but we never learned what the relationship was.

The old Hale people always held as a part of their family history that their ancestry came directly here from England, but I cannot refer to any special records more than the tradition of family history.

One other matter that came along with the family history was this: Sir Matthew Hale, an early figure of English Governmental affairs, and one of this same family of Hales was an English Lord, and a member of the House of Lords of England. In times past, but still in memory of the earlier Hale settlers of America, then another record of family history in connection with Sir Matthew Hale's public life, as an English Lord, was in regard to a murder case that was a miscarriage in trial, a verdict failing to be reached in a case where two men were engaged in a fight, and another man leaning too far out of an upstairs window to see the fight fell out and fell on a drunk man at the foot of the building and killed the drunk man. The parties trying the case of the man for killing the drunk man failed to get a verdict and Sir Matthew Hale was called to act in clearing the matter, and his rendering and decision was that the man who fell upon the drunk man was to be taken and laid at the point where the drunk man was lying, when he was killed by the other man's fall, and allow any of the complaining relatives or friends who desired to punish him to go to the same window and fall down on him. None of them cared to undertake the matter of punishment, and the case was accordingly dismissed for the want of execution.

This sentence was never executed and this case was hailed as a great decision and for which the name of Sir Matthew Hale became noted.

Augustus Borders Hale married Elizabeth Marion Evans, August 1880. He died Nov 19, 1918. John Hale married Jane Borders, died in 1882 or 1883. Zachariah Hale married Rebecca Branham. Brothers and sisters of John Hale, Ira & Farris and the girls names Anna, Tobotha, Delilah & Sally. Grandmother's father, grandfather Michael Borders was a Dutchman and his wife was Christina Pack. Their boys were named Henry and Daniel Borders. The girls were Katie & Janie. There were two other sisters. Henry Borders married Sally Hale.

/s/ Matthew Hale