Webster was born on October 16, 1758, in the Noah Webster House in western Hartford, Connecticut Colony, during the colonial-era. The … See more

Noah Webster married Rebecca Greenleaf (1766–1847) on October 26, 1789, in New Haven, Connecticut. They had eight children:
• Emily Schotten (1790–1861), who married William W. Ellsworth and was named by Webster … See more

As a teacher, Webster grew dissatisfied with American elementary schools. They could be overcrowded, with up to seventy children of all ages crammed into one-room schoolhouses.They … See more

Religion
In his early years, Webster was a freethinker, but in 1808 he became a convert to Calvinistic orthodoxy, and thereafter became a devout Congregationalist who preached the need to Christianize the … See more

Webster lacked clear career plans after graduating from Yale in 1779, later writing that a liberal arts education "disqualifies a man for business". … See more

Publication
In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. By 1807, he began work on a more … See more

• Dissertation on the English Language (1789)
• Collection of Essays and Fugitive Writings on Moral, Historical, Political, and Literary Subjects (1790)
• The American Spelling Book (1783) See more