Daniel Webster -U.S. Statesman & Fourth Cousin

Family History And Research

Today as I was researching my New England Family Tree branches that called the Plymouth Mass. area home, I came across the  biography of one Daniel Webster in a book about some of the leading citizens of the Plymouth Colonial Era.

Further research revealed that Daniel and I are fourth cousins 8 times removed and we share a man named Henry Kingsbury as our common ancestral great grandfather.
Henry Kingsbury would be Daniel's 3rd great grandfather and Henry Kingsbury would be my 11th great grandfather.
Henry Kingsbury profile

Daniel Webster descends from Samuel Kingsbury:
Samuel Kingsbury profile

 I descend from Jospeh Kingsbury:
Joseph Kingsbury profile

 These two men were brothers along with seven other siblings.
The Kingsbury line came from England to Mass via Henry and settled in Ipswich and Haverhill Mass.
.....kind of a cool history unfolding for me with this line.

I remember reading about Daniel in grade school and always felt some weird connection to his life and story..... and now I know why.

And then there is the short story "The Devil & Daniel Webster" which was made into a movie as well, and though I never read it or paid it any attention, I learned just now through some research that the fictional story features as the jury, some interesting "real" people from colonial New England, with some being ancestral relatives of mine....such as Thomas Morton who founded Merrymount Mass., a 3rd cousin and Walter Butler, a loyalist, a 4th cousin.

I never realized how interesting his life was and how connected he is to my family tree. He was, in addition to a lawyer and politician and statesman, an avid farmer.
His properties in the Marshfield Mass. area included some of the lands of my ancestral great grandparents and their families including the Winslow and Miller family lines that I descend from.

My family connection to Daniel Webster:

Daniel and John are fourth cousins 8 times removed
Daniel Webster and John Repinski are both descendants of Henry Kingsbury.

1. Daniel is the son of Abigail (Eastman) Webster
2. Abigail is the daughter of Rodger Eastman
3. Rodger is the son of Huldah Kingsbury
4. Huldah is the daughter of Samuel Kingsbury
5. Samuel is the son of Henry Kingsbury
This makes Henry the third great grandfather of Daniel.

1. John is the son of Marlene Grace (Dietz) Repinski
2. Marlene is the daughter of Raymond Harold Dietz
3. Raymond is the son of Grace Elizabeth (Pope) Dietz
4. Grace is the daughter of Henry Allen Pope
5. Henry is the son of Thomas Paschal Pope
6. Thomas Paschal is the son of Eliza Ann (Converse) Pope
7. Eliza is the daughter of Ephraim Converse
8. Ephraim is the son of Eunice (Hyde) Converse
9. Eunice is the daughter of Ephraim Hyde
10. Ephraim is the son of Hannah (Kingsbury) Hyde
11. Hannah is the daughter of Joseph Kingsbury
12. Joseph is the son of Joseph Kingsbury
13. Joseph is the son of Henry Kingsbury
This makes Henry the 11th great grandfather of John.

DANIEL WEBSTER, "The Defender Of The Constitution,"

Daniel Webster

Introduction

 Although a native of the Granite State, he was during the greater part of his career as an advocate, orator, and statesman, a citizen of Massachusetts, and for a number of years a resident of Plymouth County.

His ownership of a large landed estate at Green Harbor, his intelligent and progressive methods of agriculture, his lavish outlay for the improvement of his broad acres, his pride in his choice and well-fedstock,his hearty enjoyment of his rural surroundings, fairly entitled him to the distinction of being, far and away, the First farmer of Marshfield, South Parish.

Many of my ancestors lived in and helped settle the town of Marshfield as well.

Ancestry

My cousin Daniel Webster was born January 8, 1782, in Salisbury, N. H.
He was the second son of Ebsnezer and Abigail (Eastman) Webster, His father, who was Captain of a company in the Revolution, was a native of Kingston, N.H., and was a son of Ebenezer and Susanna (Bachelder) Webster.
(Through further research on her line, I discovered I am a distant (14th) cousin of Susannah as well.)

Concerning this ancestress, Mr. Webster once wrote: "I believe we are all indebted to my father's mother for a large portion of the little sense and character which belong to us. She was a woman of uncommon strength of understanding."
Her son Ebenezer, of Salisbury, removed in 1783 to that part of the town.
A farmer in moderate circumstances, he held the rank of Colonel in the State militia, and served as a "side justice," or Judge, in the Court of Common Pleas.

Daniel and his nine siblings grew up on their parents' farm, a small parcel of land granted to his father. His ancestors were among the early settlers of Salisbury.

Family

Webster was married twice — first in 1808 to Grace, daughter of Rev. Elijah Fletcher, a New Hampshire clergyman. She died in 1828, leaving two sons, (Daniel) Fletcher, killed in the Civil War, and Edward, a major in the United States army, who died while serving in the Mexican–American War, and a daughter Julia, who married Samuel Appleton. A daughter, Grace, and a son, Charles, died young.
 Webster's second wife was Caroline LeRoy, daughter of Herman Le Roy, a New York merchant. He was married to her in December 1829 and she survived him, dying in 1882.

His son, Fletcher Webster, served as a Union Army infantry colonel in the Civil War that Webster tried to prevent.
Fletcher Webster commanded the 12th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and was killed in action on August 30, 1862, during the Second Battle of Bull Run.

Death

Webster died on October 24, 1852, at his home in Marshfield, Massachusetts, after falling from his horse and suffering a crushing blow to the head, complicated by cirrhosis of the liver, which resulted in a cerebral hemorrhage.
 He is buried in the "Old Winslow Burial Ground" section of Marshfield's Winslow Cemetery. A day before he died, his best friend Peter Harvey had come to visit him.
Harvey had stated that Webster looked as if he were suffering.
Webster told Harvey, "I shall be dead tomorrow...God bless you, faithful friend."

His last words were: "I still live."

Historical evaluations

Webster retains his high prestige in recent historiography.
Baxter argues that his nationalistic view of the union as one and inseparable from liberty helped the union to triumph over the states-rights Confederacy, making it his greatest contribution.
However Bartlett, emphasizing Webster's private life, says his great oratorical achievements were in part undercut by his improvidence with money, his excessively opulent lifestyle, and his numerous conflict of interest situations.
Remini points out that Webster's historical orations taught Americans their history before textbooks were widely available.
 Webster was godlike in his articulation of American nationalism, Remini agrees, but his negative traits ruined his presidential ambition. He lacked the necessary modesty and his overpowering desire for the White House, and his craving for money was unbecoming to a statesman of his caliber in a nation committed to republicanism and fearful of corruption.



Taken from Wikipedia:

Daniel Webster's profile on Wikipedia

He was an American politician who represented New Hampshire (1813–1817) and Massachusetts (1823–1827) in the United States House of Representatives; served as a Senator from Massachusetts (1827–1841, 1845–1850); and was the United States Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison (1841), John Tyler (1841–1843), and Millard Fillmore (1850–1852).
He and James G. Blaine are the only people to serve as Secretary of State under three presidents. Webster also sought the Whig Party nomination for President in 1836, 1840, and 1852.

Webster was one of the most highly regarded courtroom lawyers of the era.
He shaped several key U.S. Supreme Court cases that established important constitutional precedents and bolstered the authority of the federal government. As a senator, he was a spokesman for American nationalism with powerful oratory that made him a key Whig leader. He spoke for conservatives and led the opposition to Democrat Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party, firmly challenging Jackson's policies in the Bank War.
As a diplomat, he is best known for negotiating the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 with Great Britain which established the Canada–United States border east of the Rocky Mountains. He resigned in 1843, and returned to the Senate two years later.

Webster was the Northern member of the "Great Triumvirate" with his colleagues Henry Clay from the West (Kentucky) and John C. Calhoun from the South (South Carolina).
His "Reply to Hayne" in 1830 has been regarded as one of the greatest speeches in the Senate's history.
He wanted to see the Union preserved and civil war averted, and he worked for compromises to stave off the sectionalism that threatened war between the North and the South. Webster's support for the Compromise of 1850 proved crucial to its passage, but the decision was widely unpopular in Massachusetts. Webster resigned as a result, but he was appointed to serve another term as Secretary of State under Millard Fillmore soon after.

In 1957, a Senate committee selected Daniel Webster as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Clay, Calhoun, Robert M. La Follette Sr., and Robert A. Taft.