Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-07-13
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
His Dictionary Greatest Liter
airy Undertaking of His Age.
EMOTION ATITS COMPLETION
Hartford Courant Claimed to Be the
Oldest American Newspaper.
HOME OF FIRE INSURANCE
one-Fourth of the Country's Business
Done in the Capital of
Connecticut.
HOME OF FIRE INSURANCE
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS.
Written for The Star and the Chicago Record
Herald.

| Noah Webster is claimed by many
| cities Homer. the blind poet. but he was
| born in Hartford, October 16. 1i5S, and
! spent the younger half of his life here. He
| was descended from John Webster. one of
| the first governors of Connecticut, on his
| fathers side and from William Bradford.
| one OF the Mayfower Pilgrims. on his
| mothers side. His father had farm in
West Hartford, where he was born, and,
for the first fifteen years of his life the
| author of the Unabridged Dictionary went
| to the district school over there and before
| and after school hours MIXED the cows. fed
the pigs and pigeons. chopped the wood and
did other chores that fall to the lot of a
| farmers son. He fitted for college by
| the Rev. Nathan Perkins, DID,, who was
great man in those days. and entered Yale
| in 1774. In his junior year he joined the
revolutionary army as a volunteer In the
Alarm List" body of militia home
| guards who were called upon only In a
great emergency, and at intervals saw con-
siderable service under the command of his
| father, who was the captain. He kept up
| with his studies. graduated with honor In
| IT'S, studied law with Oliver Ellsworth at
| Windsor, little village just north of Hart
| ford. was admitted to the bar, and, in de-
| fault Of clients, taught school for living
His Famous Spelling Book.
Having made reputation as a teacher. he
was invited to become principal Of an acad-
|
his famous bue-covered spelling book. His
| grammar and school reader were published
| while he was teaching at Hartford. He
1 went from Goshen to Philadelphia as a
| teacher and while there took the platform
| as public lecturer, perhaps the first man
! to adopt that profession in this country.
| He Travelled all over the thirteen states and
| lectured on politics. international law. di
plomacy, hygiene, finance, history and the
! natural sciences. His most notable lecture
| was entitled Sketches of American Pol
| icy." and it was published in pamphlet form
| in 1854 1t contains the first definite propo-
stion for constitution of the United States
| as substitute for the articles of confed-
| Grafton, which he criticised in his lectures
| as imperfect and Insufficient
| Dr. Webster was the author of the copy
| right laws of the United States. and in his
! lecture tours he presented petitions to the
| legislatures of nearly all the thirteen states
and made arguments before them in favor
| of such laws for the protection of litera-
| ture. The first copyright law was passed
by Connecticut in 1855 directly through his
| influence. He took advantage of public
! Indignation excited by the piracy of
political poem called "MacFingal," written
| by a Hartford man. in which the tories
| were satiriZed and ridiculed in rather
| coarse but witty manner.
| DR.. Webster became editor of the Ameri-
| can Magazine in New York in 1873, and
| in 1893 founded the New York Commercial
| in order to support and defend the adj
| mnistration of President Washington. In
179S he went to New Haven as a teacher
! and taught there for fourteen years; in
! founded an academy which afterward de-
| veloped into Amherst College.
Work on His Dictionary.
While he was living at New Haven he
began work upon his dictionary and gave
| it all his leisure time during his residence
| there and at Amherst. In 1923 he became
convinced that it was necessary for him
to consult authorities In Europe and he
spent several months at Paris and at Cam
| bridge, England, where his great work was
completed. 1t was the greatest literary I'M
dertaking of his age. 1t was even greater for
| those days than the Century Dictionary
| or any Of the encyclopedias would be in
| this generation. DR.. Johnson and others
had compiled dictionaries, but none was
half as large complete as Webster's
Unabridged and its publication in 1926
was the greatest event in the history of
| literature since the invention Of printing.
DR.. Webster did the work almost alone.
| He had very little assistance and the depth
| of his interest may be inferred from an
extract from a letter he wrote to his friend.
| Dr. Thomas Minor. in which he says:
| Il finished the copy sitting at my table
in Cambridge, England, January. 1928
| When 1 arrived at the last word I was
seized with q tremor that made it difficult
| to proceed. 1 summoned up strength, how
ever, to finish the work. and then. walking
about the room. 1 soon recovered"
| The Hartford Courant.
The Hartford Courant modestly proclains
itself the oldest newspaper in America. The
first number was issued by Thomas Green
| October %. 1894. and was about the size Of
a sheet of foolscap. The daily edition was
started September II. 1887 1t passed into
the hands of Gen. Joseph r. Hawley and
| Charles Dudley Warner in 1867, by con-
| solldation with the Press which they had
started in 1850 1t remained under their
| control until ten years ago when Charles
Hopkins Clark. the present editor, was
| placed In command.
Gen. Hawley was the first man in Con-
necticut to enlist for the civil war and
was elected captain of Company A, LIST
Connecticut Volunteers.
A memorial window for Cen Hawley was
recently unveiled in the chapel at Hamil-
ton College, where he graduated. There
are several other memorial windows in the
chapel. including one of Alexander Hamil-
| ton That Of Gen. Hasvley was maze in
scented by Samuel P. Calef of Middletown,
whose father was a classmate and intimate
friend Of Hawleys.
Senator Buckley lives at Hartford, and
when he is not helping Senator Foraker to
find out who shot up the town of Browns
Vile. he presides over the destinies of
eral banks, insurance companies and other
business enterprises; he builds capitols and
Dr.lges. and makes himself generally popu-
lar and useful in this community. Sena-
tor Buckley is president of the Aetna Fire
held before him for ever many years
| and he intends to beat the record.
Capital Invested in Insurance.
Hartford didn't invent insurance, as
many people suppose, and insurance Is not
the only business transacted by the people.
| as a stranger might infer If he wandered
through the downtown part of the city ane
saw the many magnificent buildings occu-
pied by insurance companies. But nowhere
else has fire insurance, at least, reached
such dimensions here. The aggregate
capital of the fire insurance companies Of
hartford is more than $12,OOO,OOO and
one-fourth Of all the fire insurance bust
ness in the country is done here-at least
that is what 1 am told.
Insurance dates back into unknown ages
It was one of the earliest forms of specu-
lation and first developed into systematic
business under the patronage of the Ham
seattle League, which controlled the marine
commerce Of northern Europe for several
centuries in the middle ages and insured
the cargoes Of its ships against wreck and
pillage by pirates. Lloyds was the first in
surance company. and that grew out of the
practice of several London merchants en-
gagged in the foreign trade underwriting
the cargoes of each other at Lloyds Inn
down near the docks in that city In 1901