| Notes |
- Webster's New International Dictionary (G & C Merriam, 1950) states:
Noah Webster, 16 Oct 1758 - 28 May 1843 - "The significance of Noah Webster's Dictionary and his Spelling Book can be appreciated only when they are viewed against the background spanned by his life. He was born on an eighty-acre Connecticut farm the year before Wolfe's victory on the Plain of Abraham, and lived to see American pioneers penetrate overland into California and Oregon. He was a small boy when the Stamp Act aroused the colonists, and a student at Yale when college classes were dispersed into the interior towns by the menace of British landing parties. He marched with his father against Burgoyne. IN 1785, moved by the incompetence of the thirteen Sovreign States, he wrote a widely circulated argument for national uniion. In 1787 he issued an influential pamphlet advocating the adoption of the Federal Constitution. From 1793 to 1798 he owned, managed and edited a daily and a weekly newspaper in New York City, supporting the Federalist policies of Washington and Adams. Living under the first ten presidents, he witnessed the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory and Florida, the admission of thirteen additional states and the approaching annexation of Texas. Out of his patriotism and nationalism inspired by this sweep of events came the conviction that lusty young America needed its own schoolbooks, its own uniform language, and its own intellectual life. Into the attainment of these ends Webster flung himself with insatiable curiosity and indomitable energy. His American Spelling Book (which taught not only spelling but pronunciation, common sense, morals, and good citizenship) was partly provoked by his efforts to use Dilworth's English Spelling Book while he was teaching school in Connecticut, New York, and Philadelphia. His dictionaries (Compendious 1806, American 1828) were suggested partly by his resentment against the ignorance concerning American institutions shown in contemporary British dictionaries. All his life he was a defender and interpreter of the American political "experiment," with all its cultural implications. His Dictionaries and his Spelling book grew out of an intimate and vital familiartity with American life. He knew the farm, the law, the city, the school, and politics. He knew the country as a whole - he had traveled (1785-1786) by horse, by carriage, and by sailing vessel from Massachusetts to South Carolina, persuading State legislatures to pass laws for the protection of copyright. He was a spelling reformer, an orchardist, a gardener, and an experimental scientist. He was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.
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Noah's house is still standing in West Hartford, Conn. on the direct road, about one mile south of the church, which stands in the center of town. His grandfather was of the first settlers in Hartford and governor of Connecticut. His mother was a descendant of William Bradford, of Plymouth, Connecticut. He entered Yale in 1774 and he had been but a few months in college when the thrilling story or Lexington and Concord came, followed soon by Bunker Hill.
General Washington and his staff passed through New Haven on his way to take command of the revolutionary force gathered in Cambridge. They lodged there, and in the morning were invited to see the drill of a company of the students, who finally escorted General Washington as far on his way as Neck Bridge. Webster had the honor of leading the way, blowing a fife. In the third year of his course, on account of the war, college life in New Haven was broken up, and the classes were dispersed in various towns. Webster's class went to Glastonbury, and on the alarm by the approach toward Connecticut of Burgoyne, accompanied by a large band of savage Indians, a company went from West Hartford, commanded by Deacon Webster, and in that company went his three sons, Noah among them. This company took part in the brilliant victories which ended in Burgoyne's surrender. The following year Noah finished his college course.
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Ramage Family History
1758 - 1843 (84 years)
