The Character of Noah Webster

by Rebeca Johnson (14)
(Blythewood, SC, USA)

Noah Webster was a scholar who showed exceptional talent. As a young child, he read every book he could get his hands on. His family sacrificed much, even mortgaging the family farm so that he would have the best education possible.

Webster was a knowledgeable man as well. He was a man with an impressive basis of knowledge on almost any issue of learning. Few people went to college, but Noah loved to learn, so his parents let him go to Yale, the only college in Connecticut. He left for New Haven in 1774, when he was sixteen.

In 1787, Webster founded the short-lived American Magazine in New York City. The magazine mixed literary criticism with essays on education, government, agriculture, and a variety of other subjects. In 1793 he founded a pro-Federalist daily newspaper, The American Minerva, and a semi-weekly paper, The Herald, which was made up of reprinted selections. He sold both papers in 1803.

On October 26, 1789, Noah married Rebecca Greenleaf. They had eight children: six girls and two boys. Mr. Webster carried raisins and candies in his pockets for the kids to enjoy. The Websters lived in New Haven, then moved to Amherst, Massachusetts.

Mr. Webster also liked to write. He wrote the blue-backed speller in 1783. He spent the last twenty-seven years of his life writing the American Dictionary of the English Language. Finally, at the age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828.

Character Qualities Of Noah Webster

1. Scholar
2. Knowledgeable
3. Founder
4. Family man
5. Writer