The Forgotten Founding Father- Noah Webster (44 page)

Webster, who would never lose the spring in his step, remained remarkably fit. In April 1835, he proudly reported to Fowler that his physician’s bill the previous year had totaled just a dollar. “Except for a few days of rheumatism,” he added, “I have better health the winter past than I had from 20 years old to 65.” He attributed his vigor to his regular habits. His diet, which steered clear of “French dressings,” featured plenty of vegetables and just one small—defined as “about the size of three fingers”—piece of lean meat a day. Though he eventually had to give up gardening, he would continue to take brisk walks around New Haven to buy supplies for his family. In 1842, Webster, who still had a full head of silver hair, confided to his daughter Eliza, “I am more fleshy than ever before. Everybody is surprised to see me walk as straight as a flag-staff.”

Webster characterized “old age” as “an aristocracy resulting from God’s appointment.”

AS THE EXHAUSTED compiler recovered from the strain of finishing up his “great book,” the marketing genius sprang back into action. By the end of 1829, Webster published two abridged editions of
The American Dictionary,
a thousand-page octavo for the home and a five-hundred-page duodecimo—a small square book, like the “compend”—for schools and offices. On account of the modest price—the octavo was six dollars, as opposed to twenty dollars for the two-volume quarto—the abridgements would fly off the shelves and be reprinted dozens of times. For the octavo, Webster hired an editor, Joseph Worcester, to do the legwork under the supervision of his son-in-law and neighbor, Chauncey Goodrich. In 1829, Webster also came out with a new edition of his
American Spelling Book,
whose copyright wasn’t due to expire until 1832. As amended by Daniel Barnes and Aaron Ely, Webster’s
Elementary Spelling Book
used the same orthography as his three new dictionaries. Webster then branded these four volumes as “Noah Webster’s Series of books for the instruction in the English language.” While he publicly downplayed his own financial motives—“But the great object is
the permanent improvement of the language
and . . . the
literature
of this country”—securing his financial future was now a paramount concern. In 1829, Webster also finalized a deal with E. H. Barker of Norfolk, England, to reprint his quarto under the title
A Dictionary of the English Language
in Britain. Appreciating his precise definitions, the British snapped up all three thousand copies within a couple of years, but they never took to the idea of letting an American dictate the future of their brand of English.

Having published a flurry of new works, Webster turned his attention to protecting his valuable assets. After returning from England, he had begun enlisting the help of his cousin Daniel, who had jumped from the House to the Senate in 1827, in his campaign to extend the term of copyright from fourteen to twenty-eight years, as was already the case in Britain. He also sought a provision that would grant an author’s widow and children copyright protection in the event of an author’s death. While these political goals weren’t unreasonable, Webster had trouble distinguishing between his own personal needs and those of his country. To Senator Webster he observed, “I have a great interest in this question, and I think the interest of science and literature in this question, are by no means, inconsiderable.” When William Ellsworth was elected to Congress in 1829, Webster stepped up his lobbying. But with Ellsworth unable to bring a bill before the House in his first year on Capitol Hill, Webster decided to take the matter into his own hands.

His ten-week sojourn in Washington would succeed beyond his wildest expectations; he would be feted as a national treasure.

IN LATE 1830, right after spending Thanksgiving next door at the Goodriches, Webster accompanied his daughter Emily and Ellsworth, as they headed south for the opening of the second session of the Twenty-first Congress.

The trio first stopped off in Manhattan. Though his room measured only ten feet by ten feet, the author of
The American Dictionary
felt at home at the elegant American Hotel at 229 Broadway, on the corner of Barclay Street, opposite City Hall Park (where the Woolworth building stands today). Noting that his bed was just three feet from a warm fire fueled by coal, he reported to Rebecca on November 30, “O how comfortable it is.” But Webster was irked by what he perceived as Emily’s extravagant lifestyle. Reflecting on her large trunk, which included a couple of French caps, he added, “It seems to be necessary in this vain world to make a display.”

On December 13, Webster and his traveling companions arrived in Washington, where they settled into Noah Fletcher’s three-story double-brick home on 6th Street, a boarding house frequented by members of Congress. Suffering from a nasty cold, Webster hardly went out for the first ten days. With his eyes bothering him so much that he couldn’t read, he spent many hours daydreaming by the fire. “The catarrh in my head,” he complained to Rebecca on the seventeenth, “makes it feel like a cooking turnip.”

Webster spent Christmas at the home of his brother-in-law William Cranch, the D.C. circuit court judge, “where we had a tribe of the Greenleaf descendants and were very happy.” Webster was reunited with his onetime patron, James Greenleaf, who by then was back in the family fold. Since his release from prison a generation earlier, Greenleaf had climbed back up the social ladder and settled in a mansion at First and C streets with his second wife, the wealthy and beautiful Ann Penn, daughter of James Allen, the founder of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

On December 28, thanks to Senator Felix Grundy of Tennessee, who was also staying at the Fletcher house, Webster received an invitation to dine at the White House. As an outsider at this event attended by thirty congressmen, Webster sat directly to the right of the man who was perhaps his least favorite person in America, President Andrew Jackson. With his military bearing, the tall and gaunt “Old Hickory” bore a close physical resemblance to Webster. (In fact, during the president’s visit to New Haven two years later, some people waiting to see him accidentally took Webster by the hand, supposing him to be Jackson; this mix-up prompted several bystanders to exclaim that they had shaken the hand of a better man.) Sitting down to eat at about six, Webster soon became incensed with Jackson for preferring European cuisine. Spread out on the table were various French and Italian dishes, whose names Webster didn’t know or care to learn. But the fierce patriot kept his pique to himself. “As to dining at the president’s table,” the lexicographer confided to Harriet the following day, “in the true sense of the word, there is no such thing.”

The published version of that December 29, 1830, letter to Harriet, in which Webster described his White House visit, leaves out his update on his son: “William is here, but leaves us today. He has a comfortable living at Mr. Stuart’s in Fairfax County, Virginia. He wishes to have a permanent living and is somewhat low-spirited. How his wishes are to be accomplished, I cannot see.” Ever since his return from England, William’s unsettled future had been a major source of family tension. He failed at one teaching job after another, and he accumulated many debts. While his children urged Webster to cut William loose, the aggrieved father kept trying to rescue his only son. In the latest plan, Webster had helped set up William as a private tutor at Chantilly, the Virginia estate of Charles Calvert Stuart, whose late mother Eleanor Calvert Custis had been Martha Washington’s daughter-in-law. (Eleanor’s first marriage to John Custis had produced “Wash” and “Nelly,” the two boys George Washington had once asked Webster to tutor.)

During his brief stay in Washington, William had some big news to report: He had fallen in love with his employer’s younger sister, Rosalie Stuart, whom he planned to marry. Concerned about Webster’s reaction, William mentioned his engagement only to his sister Emily, who eventually relayed it to her father. From Washington, a wary Webster confided his fears to Rebecca:

The wedding took place on May 4, 1831, in Virginia. For the next decade, the couple would zigzag across the country, living in New Haven; Cincinnati; Lafayette, Indiana; New Haven (again); and Brooklyn. Though Webster would grow fond of Rosalie, the marriage would prove as rocky as William’s career as a salesman and editor of his father’s books. William would also wage a lifelong struggle against depression. As he later confided to Webster, “I am subject to protestation of spirits.” And after the death of both their sons during the Civil War,
⁷
William and Rosalie would divorce.

At seven o’clock in the evening on Monday, January 3, 1831, Webster gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on the origin, history and present state of the English language. Avoiding any direct mention of “his series of instructional books,” Webster stressed the importance of passing the copyright bill. He also highlighted the
need to standardize American English. His remarks went over well. A Philadelphia paper reported, “the worthy lexicographer shows his wisdom in commencing the remedy at the very seat of disease” (thus alluding to the frequent abuse of language in the halls of Congress). A few days later, the House passed the bill, which Daniel Webster then shepherded through the Senate; a month later, it became the law of the land. But the seventy-two-year-old Webster wasn’t done. He intended to give another lecture, at the end of which he would call for a vote on a proposition “to encourage the use of my books as standards of spelling.” But since the snowy weather made a second gathering difficult to arrange, he drew up a paper “recommending the American Dictionary as a standard, to prevent the formation of dialects in this extensive country.” By mid-February, more than a hundred members of Congress signed on. Even more gratifying, he wrote Eliza, were the affectionate personal greetings: