served under Sir Jeffrey Amherst in the invasion of Canada.' He rose to the rank of captain before the end of the war. At the peace he returned to his native town, was married, and joined the company of settlers who went northward into the wilderness, and founded the town of Stevenstown, the name of which was afterward changed to Salisbury. The township, as originally laid out, was four miles wide, along the west bank of the Merrimac, and extended southwestwardly for nine miles, nearly to the top of the Kearsarge Mountain. The portion of this grant, which Ebenezer Webster obtained for himself, lay farther to the north than any of the others, so that, after his log house was built upon it, there was no civilized neighbor between him and Montreal.

The family of Webster, from which this pioneer of New Hampshire was descended, appear to have been first settled at Hampton, on the coast, about 1636, or sixteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Their most remote known ancestor was Thomas Webster, from whom the descent to Ebenezer Webster can be regularly traced in the church and town records of Hampton, Kingston, and Salisbury. They were originally Scotch; but they probably emigrated to this country from England.

Precisely how long Ebenezer Webster continued to live in the log house, which he must have erected about the year 1764, cannot now be determined; but that house was his home from the time when it was built until near the close of the Revolutionary War. From it he buried his first wife, Mehitable Smith, who died in March, 1774; and to it he brought Abigail Eastman, who became his second wife in August of the same year. It was on a hill, three miles westwardly from the river. The region about it was mountainous; the winters were long and dreary; the depth of snow was often prodigious, and there were no regular roads for communication with the country below. The land was poor. Of comfort there was little to be gained there. Of the necessaries of life, what could be had were purchased with severe toil, hardship, and often danger, or

1 From the journals of Major Rogers, a rare and curious book, printed in London, in 1765, it may be inferred that

the enlistment of Ebenezer Webster occurred in 1760, or when he was about two-and-twenty.

at least with the apprehension of danger; for, although the peace of 1763 had put an end to the wild and cruel forays of the Northern Indians into the settlements of New England, the memory of those terrible midnight raids had not yet passed away, and, in the forest that stretched from Ebenezer Webster's farm to the frontier of Canada, there still lurked, if not roving bands, roving individual savages, whose visits, when innocent of blood, too well suggested the horrors of a time not long gone by. In such scenes, and in such a life, he who had "come home from the wars" with strong elements of character to settle down as a farmer on the outposts of civilization, to be one of the founders of a new town, to have children born to him, to know sorrow, to struggle and to toil, was not unlikely to become a devoted parent, a patriotic and respected citizen, and a devout man. All these qualities and characteristics, in fact, belonged to Ebenezer Webster. He is described, too, as

man of great firmness, whose bearing and manner were decisive; tall and erect, with a full chest, black hair and eyes, and rather large and prominent features. Of education, save what he had given to himself, he had none; for it is recorded of him that he never saw the interior of a school-house in the capacity of a pupil. Yet it is known that some of the earliest records of the town of Salisbury are in his handwriting; and by the middle period of his life he was sufficiently well educated to fulfil, from that time to his death,

When speaking once, at length, of his father and mother and their life in the log house, Mr. Webster said: "They endured together in this hut all sorts of privations and hardships; my mother was constantly visited by Indians who had never before gone to a white man's house but to kill its inhabitants, while my father perhaps was gone, as he frequently was, miles away, carrying on his back the corn to be ground, which was to support his family."-(MSS. in the author's possession.)

The following anecdote, illustrating his decision of character, is taken from a Memoir of him, published in the NewHampshire Statesman, in 1858, by George W. Nesmith, Esq. In 1791, he was appointed at the head of a committee of the town and the church, to settle a

clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Worcester.
A council, after the manner of the
churches in New England, was assem-
bled to perform the ordination. But a
dispute arose between the council and
Mr. Worcester on a point of doctrine,
and a long time was spent in.the dis-
cussion, the people waiting impatiently
without for the ordination to proceed.
At length Judge Webster was appointed
to wait upon the council, and inquire
into the cause of the delay.
peared before them, and heard their
statement. "Gentlemen," said he, "the
ordination must come on now, and, if
you cannot assist, we must try to get
along without you. The point under
discussion must be postponed to some
other day." The ordination ceremonies
proceeded without any further delay.

He ap

with entire respectability, the functions of a legislator and a magistrate.'

He had been married a second time, as I have said, not long before the shock sent through New England from Bunker Hill was felt in her remotest borders, and her yeomanry sprang to arms. Captain Webster was among the first of them to obey that summons. He raised a company in his own town, the population of which had then become so considerable that it could furnish two hundred men; and, with the other NewHampshire troops, he and the company which he commanded were out in nearly every campaign of the Revolutionary War. He fought at Bennington under Stark, and at White Plains; and he was at West Point when Arnold's attempt to surrender that post to the British occurred.' In the militia of New Hampshire he held the rank of colonel; but, in his own neighborhood, he was for a long time generally called "the captain." How much he was at home during the war it would of

1 One of his townsmen thus described him in a letter addressed to the son-inlaw of Ezekiel Webster, Professor Sanborn of Dartmouth College, in 1853: "Of his father, Hon. Ebenezer Webster, I have a perfect recollection, as to form and features. His stature was nearly six feet. He was compact, robust, and well-proportioned, and, late in life, inclined to corpulency. His complexion was dark, a broad projecting forehead, eyes large, black, and piercing, overshadowed by heavy brows. With respect to intellect, he was a perfect example of a strong-minded, unlettered man; of sound common sense, correct judgment, and tenacious memory; all of which desirable qualities were for him, to some extent, a substitute for education. He was a resolute, determined character, and never easily turned from his purpose, when once convinced that it was right."(Letter by Mr. Thomas H. Pettingill. Correspondence of Daniel Webster, vol. i., p. 59.)

"A sergeant of his company informed me that he was among the first [at Bennington] to scale the Tory breastwork, as it was called; and that, when he came out of the battle, he was so covered with dust and powder that he could scarcely be recognized." (Mr. Pettingill, ut supra.) In 1840, while travelling

in the southwestern part of New Hampshire, and anxious to reach his destination, Mr. Webster, while ascending a hill, observed an aged man before him who was driving a fine horse. His name was Boynton. Leaving his own vehicle, Mr. Webster jumped into Mr. Boynton's wagon; so that "the first thing I knew," as the old man said afterward, "he was sitting beside me." But he did not know his passenger at that time, although he engaged to drive him to Wilton. As they went along, conversing about people in New Hampshire, Mr. Boynton observed that he had known "Old Judge Webster, the father of Daniel;" he had been "out in the Continental War with him. I remember," said he, "that he stood guard before General Washington's headquarters the night after Arnold's treason. In the morning General Washington asked him to take a glass of wine with him; and I don't believe he slept a wink the night after that." (MSS.) It was a wellknown tradition in New Hampshire, derived from one of his soldiers, that when he was posted for that night as officer of the guard, at headquarters, Washington said to him, "Captain Webster, I believe I can trust you.”—Mr. Nesmith's Memoir in the New-Hampshire Statesman, ut supra.)

course be impossible to ascertain now. But the domestic events which mark this portion of his life, and render his name and character of interest to the world, were the births of his two sons, Ezekiel and Daniel, who were the only sons of his second marriage. The former was born on the 11th of April, 1780 and the latter on the 18th of January, 1782.' From a collation of all the evidence respecting the place in which Daniel was born, it appears that his brother Ezekiel and one of his sisters were born in the log house; that their father built a second house, usually called a "frame" house, near the same spot; and that, in this second house, Daniel was born. In about a year after his birth his father removed to the bank of the Merrimac, to the house in which he died."

"Elms Farm," as it was afterward called, from the numbers of fine elms which are upon it, is the place to which Captain Webster removed in 1783. It is situated in a valley, at a bend of the Merrimac, two and a half miles below the head of that river. It was originally a part of the township of Salisbury; but in 1828 a new town, including this farm, was set off from the eastern end of Salisbury, and called Franklin. The place was bought by Mr. Webster's father, of a family whose name was Call. They were the first settlers upon it; and, many years before they sold it, they had suffered terrible cruelties there at the hands of the Indians.' High ranges of hills enclose

The children of Ebenezer Webster, by his first marriage, were five-Olle, a daughter, and Ebenezer, a son, who died young; Susannah, born October, 1766, married to John Colby; David, and Joseph. The children of the second marriage were Mehitable, Abigail, married to Mr. Haddock, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Sarah; Mehitable died unmarried, For Sarah, see Index.

2 A sketch of the house in which Mr. Webster was born, drawn by Charles Lanman, Esq., and sanctioned by Mr. Webster, is prefixed to the first volume of his works. The cut at the head of the present chapter is a view of "Elms Farm," as it now appears.

Mr. Webster, in a letter written from this spot to President Fillmore, in July, 1852, says: "Under my eyes, at this moment, is the site of one of the last forts, built on the frontiers to pro

tect the inhabitants of this and the
neighboring towns against the Indians.
The Indians made constant attacks,
often so suddenly, that they could not
be resisted. A Mrs. Call was killed by
them on this spot, about the year 1775.
The cellar of her cabin is close by my
house. She was an elderly woman, and
her husband and her son were at work
in the field, not half a mile off. Her
daughter-in-law, with her child in her
arms, seeing the Indians coming, jumped
in behind the chimney, hushed her baby,
and so avoided discovery, and escaped
death. This baby, whose name was John
Call, I knew very well when I was a
boy. My father bought this plac
ice of
that family. This is one of the very many
border stories to which I have listened
of winter evenings, in the early part of
my life. You will perceive, my dear sir,
that I am old enough to begin to become

1

the river on both sides, but leaving a broad "intervale" of meadow. The two streams which form the Merrimac have retained their Indian names. One, the Pemigewasset, rises in the White Mountains, and flows down their southern slopes, "the beau ideal of a mountain stream," as Mr. Webster has described it" cold, noisy, winding, and with banks of much picturesque beauty." The other, the Winnepiseogee, is the outlet of the great lake of the same name, which discharges its waters westwardly, until they unite with those of the mountain torrent, making a circuit of about a hundred miles before they reach the sea, through the Merrimac, at Newburyport. Concord, the legislative capital of New Hampshire, is fifteen miles below Franklin, on the same side of the river. From a high sheep-pasture on the Webster farm, through a wide opening in the hills, beyond the Kearsarge Mountain, in a northwesterly direction, Ascutney Mountain, in Vermont, is visible; and from the same spot, looking nearly northeast, Mount Washington, the highest peak of the White Mountains, shows its snowy summit. On this farm the boyhood of DANIEL WEBSTER WAS passed.

No account of his origin can be complete without some attempt to find in his race those remarkable physical traits which distinguished his person through life, and which are so well known to the world, in their unison with his intellectual and moral nature. Fortunately, we have his own account of the physical peculiarities of his family, given with his accustomed clearness in a few sentences of his autobiography. From these many of my readers may be surprised to learn that the Websters of New England have, in general, "light complexions, sandy hair, a good deal of it, and bushy eyebrows;" and that they "are rather slender than broad or corpulent." But he tells us that his father and his father's brothers were very unlike in their personal traits; that his father resembled his grandmother, while his uncles resembled his grandfather.

garrulous; for it is certain that Mrs. Call's murder, by the Indians, a hundred years ago, has little to do with the legislation or diplomacy of the present time." (Correspondence, ii., 535.)

1 Letter to Mr. Blatchford, from

Franklin, May 3, 1846.— ( Correspondence, ii., 225.

Dr. Noah Webster, the eminent lexicographer, was of a collateral branch of this family.-(Biographical Memoir, Works, i.)