Ebenezer Webster (born in

Kingston, New Hampshire Kingston is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The population at the 2020 census was 6,202. History Kingston was the fifth town to be established in New Hampshire. Originally, it was a part of Hampton, New Hampshire. ...

, April 22, 1739; died in

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of ...

(now part of Franklin),

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

, April 22, 1806) was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

, innkeeper,

militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

member, politician and judge. He was the father of

Daniel Webster Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison ...

, a noted lawyer and orator who served in the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

, as

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

, and in other offices.

Biography

Ebenezer was a Judge with Hillsborough County, New Hampshire a farmer and innkeeper. He served under General Amherst in the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

, and in 1761 was one of the original settlers of that part of the town of Salisbury now known as Franklin, then the northernmost

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

settlement.

Revolutionary War

At the outbreak of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

, he led the Salisbury militia to

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

. Subsequently he fought at White Plains and Bennington, was at

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

during the treason of Arnold, and served in other campaigns until the close of the war, when he had attained the rank of colonel of militia.

Public career

He was at various times a member of one or the other branch of the

legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...

, those being the New Hampshire House of Representatives and the

New Hampshire Senate The New Hampshire Senate has been meeting since 1784. It is the upper house of the New Hampshire General Court, alongside the lower New Hampshire House of Representatives. It consists of 24 members representing Senate districts based on populatio ...

, and from 1791 till his death was judge of the court of common pleas of Hillsborough County.

Family

His eldest son by his second wife, Abigail Eastman, was named Ezekiel. Ezekiel was born in Salisbury, March 11, 1780, and died in

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

, April 10, 1829. Ezekiel graduated from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

in 1804, studied law, and rose to eminence in his profession. He also served in the state legislature. He died instantaneously of disease of the heart while trying a case in Concord. Ebenezer's second son by Abigail was Daniel, a noted statesman of the United States.

Notes

References

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External links

Ebenezer Webster entry
at

The Political Graveyard The Political Graveyard is a website and database that catalogues information on more than 277,000 American political figures and political families, along with other information. The name comes from the website's inclusion of burial locations o ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Webster, Ebenezer 1739 births 1806 deaths Farmers from New Hampshire American judges New Hampshire state senators People from Kingston, New Hampshire New Hampshire militiamen in the American Revolution People of the French and Indian War