Webster, Noah. Author and philologist. Born in Hartford, CT, in 1758. Webster was educated at Yale College. He was admitted to the bar in 1781, but engaged in scholastic and literary occupations. Employed in teaching a school at Goshen, NY, he prepared his "Grammatical Institutes of the English Language," published in three parts, and edited "Governor Winthrop's Journal." In 1784 Webster wrote "Sketches of American Policy," advocating the formation of a new constitution, and gave public lectures on the English language, which were published in 1789. In 1807 Noah Webster published "A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language," and commenced his American "Dictionary of the English Language," but finding difficulties in etymology, he devoted ten years to its study, and prepared a "Synopsis of Words in Twenty Languages." He then began his dictionary anew, and in seven years completed it. Webster also published a popular "History of the United States," and a "Manual of Useful Studies." He was a judge and a member of the state legislature, and one of the founders of Amherst College. Noah Webster died in New Haven in 1843.

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