Daniel Webster | Page 3

He was, too, a splendid specimen of the
New England race; a true descendant of ancestors who had been for
generations yeomen and pioneers. Tall, large, dark of hair and eyes, in
the rough world in which he found himself he had been thrown at once
upon his own resources without a day's schooling, and compelled to
depend on his own innate force of sense and character for success. He
had had a full experience of desperate fighting with Frenchmen and
Indians, and, the war over, he had returned to his native town with his
hard-won rank of captain. Then he had married, and had established his
home upon the frontier, where he remained battling against the grim
desolation of the wilderness and of the winter, and against all the
obstacles of soil and climate, with the same hardy bravery with which
he had faced the Indians. After ten years of this life, in 1774, his wife
died and within a twelvemonth he married again.
Soon after this second marriage the alarm of war with England sounded,
and among the first to respond was the old ranger and Indian fighter,
Ebenezer Webster. In the town which had grown up near his once
solitary dwelling he raised a company of two hundred men, and
marched at their head, a splendid looking leader, dark, massive, and tall,
to join the forces at Boston. We get occasional glimpses of this
vigorous figure during the war. At Dorchester, Washington consulted
him about the state of feeling in New Hampshire. At Bennington, we
catch sight of him among the first who scaled the breastworks, and

again coming out of the battle, his swarthy skin so blackened with dust
and gunpowder that he could scarcely be recognized. We hear of him
once more at West Point, just after Arnold's treason, on guard before
the general's tent, and Washington says to him, "Captain Webster, I
believe I can trust you." That was what everybody seems to have felt
about this strong, silent, uneducated man. His neighbors trusted him.
They gave him every office in their gift, and finally he was made judge
of the local court. In the intervals of his toilsome and adventurous life
he had picked up a little book-learning, but the lack of more barred the
way to the higher honors which would otherwise have been easily his.
There were splendid sources of strength in this man, the outcome of
such a race, from which his children could draw. He was, to begin with,
a magnificent animal, and had an imposing bodily presence and
appearance. He had courage, energy, and tenacity, all in high degree.
He was business-like, a man of few words, determined, and efficient.
He had a great capacity for affection and self-sacrifice, noble
aspirations, a vigorous mind, and, above all, a strong, pure character
which invited trust. Force of will, force of mind, force of character;
these were the three predominant qualities in Ebenezer Webster. His
life forms the necessary introduction to that of his celebrated son, and it
is well worth study, because we can learn from it how much that son
got from a father so finely endowed, and how far he profited by such a
rich inheritance.
By his first wife, Ebenezer Webster had five children. By his second
wife, Abigail Eastman, a woman of good sturdy New Hampshire stock,
he had likewise five. Of these, the second son and fourth child was born
on the eighteenth of January, 1782, and was christened Daniel. The
infant was a delicate and rather sickly little being. Some cheerful
neighbors predicted after inspection that it would not live long, and the
poor mother, overhearing them, caught the child to her bosom and wept
over it. She little dreamed of the iron constitution hidden somewhere in
the small frail body, and still less of all the glory and sorrow to which
her baby was destined.
For many years, although the boy disappointed the village Cassandras
by living, he continued weak and delicate. Manual labor, which began

very early with the children of New Hampshire farmers, was out of the
question in his case, and so Daniel was allowed to devote much of his
time to play, for which he showed a decided aptitude. It was play of the
best sort, in the woods and fields, where he learned to love nature and
natural objects, to wonder at floods, to watch the habits of fish and
birds, and to acquire a keen taste for field sports. His companion was an
old British sailor, who carried the child on his back, rowed with him on
the river, taught him the angler's art, and, best of all, poured into his
delighted ear endless stories of an adventurous life, of Admiral Byng
and Lord George Germaine, of Minden