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Noah Webster, influential American lexicographer, author and teacher,and one of Deacon Samuel Chapin's most noted decendants was born in 16 Oct 1758 in West Hartford, Connecticut. He was also descended from John Webster of Hartford, governor of Connecticut in 1656-1657, and on his mother's side from Governor William Bradford of Plymouth. He spent his youth on his family's small farm, and at the age of 15 he entered Yale College in 1774. At the outbreak of the Revolution, Noah's college education was interrupted. Noah believed strongly in the American's cause and he volunteered for duty, serving under his father. As the war ended, Noah returned to the school and graduated from Yale College in 1778. He had hoped to go on with his studies and practice law, but he first became a teacher in Hartford, CT. He continued to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1781 He lived for a time with Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, whose son, Gov. Ellsworth, later married Webster's daughter.

In 1782-1783 he taught in a classical school at Goshen, New York. He became dissatisfied with children's textbooks, which he felt ignored distinctive elements of American language and culture and became convinced of the need of better textbooks of English. . In 1783 he published The American Spelling Book, the famed "Blue-backed Speller," a widely used and highly influential textbook that is still in print. Subsequent publications of a grammar (1784) and a reader (1785) formed, with the speller, Webster's three-part "Grammatical Institute of the English Language." Webster's advocacy of spelling reform in this period was responsible for most of the differences that exist today between American and British spelling.This was the pioneer American work in its field, and it soon found a place in most of the schools of the United States During the twenty years in which Webster was preparing his dictionary, his income from the spelling-book, though the royalty was less than a cent a copy, was enough to support his family; and before 1861 the sale reached more than a million copies a year. The wide use of this book contributed greatly to uniformity of pronunciation in the United States, and, with his dictionary, secured the general adoption in the United States of a simpler system of spelling than that current in England.

In 1785 he published "Sketches of American Policy", in which he argued [or a constitutional government whose authority should be vested in Congress. This he regarded as the first distinct proposal :or a United States Constitution, and when in 1787 the work of the commissioners was completed at Philadelphia, where Webster was then living as superintendent of an academy, he wrote in behalf of the constitution an Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution.

In 1788 he started in New York the "American Magazine," but it failed at the end of a year, and he resumed the practice of law at Hartford. In 1793, in order to support Washington's administration, he removed to New York and established a daily paper, the "Minerva" (afterwards the "Commercial Advertiser"), and later a semi-weekly paper, the "Herald" (afterwards the "New York Spectator").

After marrying Rebecca Greenleaf in 1789, Webster practiced law in Hartford until 1793. In New York City he then founded two newspapers, "American Minerva "(said to be New York's first daily newspaper) and "The Herald", both of which he sold in 1803. He moved to New Haven in 1798, He served in the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1800 and 1802-07,and as a county judge in 1807.

In 1806 Webster published his "Compendious Dictionary of the English Language." This work prepared the way for the achievement for which he is most famous, "An American Dictionary of the English Language." He spent a year (1824-1825) abroad, working on this dictionary, in Paris and at the university of Cambridge, where he finished his manuscript. containing over 70,000 entries and published in two volumes in 1828. It contained 12,000 words and from 30,000 to 40,000 definitions that had not appeared in any earlier dictionary. An English edition soon followed. In 1840 the second edition, corrected and enlarged, came out, in two volumes. He completed the revision of an appendix a few days before his death, which occurred in New Haven on the 28th of May 1843. (Later, George and Charles Merriam purchased the rights to this dictionary from Webster's estate.)

While engaged on writing his dictionary, he removed in 1812 to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he was president of the Board of' Trustees of the Academy and assisted in founding Amherst College. He was also a member of the General Court of Massachusetts. Noah and his family lived largely off the income from his published schoolbooks, and farming. In Amherst the Webster family lived in a house on Main Street, facing the Common. (This house was destroyed by fire in 1838.) In 1822 he returned to New Haven, and the next year he received the degree of LL.D. from Yale. Noah Webster died in New Haven in 1843.

Descendants of Noah Webster: The following is a partial listing of the descendants of Noah Webster who are represented in the Noah Webster Family Papers.

1. Noah Webster (1758-1843) m. Rebecca Greenleaf
Daughter:
2. Eliza Steele Webster (1803-1888) m. Henry Jones (Oct 15, 1801-Nov. 7, 1878)
Daughter:
3. Emily Ellsworth Jones (1827-1869) m. Daniel Jones Day
Son:
4. Robert W. Day (b. 1854, Bridgeport Conn.; lived in Buffalo, N.Y.)
Son:
5. Rodney W. Day (b. 1883)