Webster

Webster town (1990 pop. 16,196), Worcester co., S Mass., near the Conn. line; settled c.1713, set off from Dudley and Oxford and inc. 1832. The chief manufactures are clothing, lenses, fabrics, and textiles. The town was named for Daniel Webster and became a textile center in the early 19th cent. through the efforts of Samuel Slater , a pioneer in the U.S. textile industry.

Webster, Noah (1758–1843), American lexicographer and philologist, is remembered for his great and scholarly An American Dictionary of the English Language (2 vols, 1828). (See also dictionary.)

Webster, Daniel (1782–1852) US statesman. A famous lawyer and orator, he defended the interests of New England in Congress, opposing the War of 1812. Although opposed to the extension of slavery, he engineered the Compromise of 1850, which solved the crisis over whether the new state of California should be slave-holding or free. He negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), fixing the boundary between Maine and Canada.