IX 



DANIEL WEBSTER 



AND THE SENTIMENT OF UNION 



WHEN the little town of Hampton, on the coast be- 

 tween the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, was settled 

 in 1639 by Antinomians who had found cold welcome 

 at Boston, among the company was one Thomas Web- 

 ster, concerning whom little is known. A hundred 

 years later we find his family living a few miles inland, 

 at Kingston, and there Ebenezer Webster was born 

 in 1739. Late in the Seven Years' War, Ebenezer 

 Webster enlisted in the partisan troop celebrated as 

 Rogers's " Rangers," and after some hard service and 

 wild adventure returned home at the peace of 1763 

 with the rank of captain. He was soon after married, 

 and with a company of friends and neighbours went 

 to found the town of Salisbury, deep in the wilderness 

 by the upper waters of the Merrimac and in the shadow 

 of Kearsarge Mountain. Captain Webster's log house 

 was built on a hill at the northern end of the township, 

 and between that hill and Montreal, two hundred miles 

 distant, there was nothing but the unbroken pine for- 

 est, with its prowling Indians and wolves. In 1775 

 the neighbourhood had become more populous, so 

 that when the stout captain went to join the Conti- 

 nental army he took with him two hundred men. He 

 served in almost every campaign of the Revolutionary 

 War, and rose to the rank of colonel. At Bennington 



365 



