The Forgotten Founding Father- Noah Webster, page 20
The twelfth child of William and Mary Greenleaf, James Greenleaf (1765-1843) was a year older than Webster’s wife, Rebecca. Without the financial assistance of the well-heeled “brother James,” Webster could not have married and started a family.
Throughout what he called “the hottest summer ever known,” Webster kept thinking about how he could make more money. On July 24, he noted in his diary, “We have squashes from our garden and watermelons in market.”
But a national crisis would again knock Webster out of his doldrums. Edmond Genet, the French ambassador to the United States, was stepping up his efforts to drag America into another war with England. To keep America at peace, George Washington would once again turn to his trusted protégé. And Webster would soon be able to earn a good living by writing a torrent of words on behalf of his country. Nothing could have pleased him more.
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Editor of New York City’s First Daily
NEWSPAPER, n. A sheet of paper printed and distributed for conveying news; a public print that circulates news, advertisements, proceedings of legislative bodies, public documents and the like.
Edmond Genet was very much on Webster’s mind even before the Washington administration came calling.
Since his arrival in April, “Citizen Genet,” as he called himself, had waged a vigorous public relations campaign on behalf of France’s bellicose revolutionary government. Through his fiery speeches, which were widely covered in the press, the ambassador was gaining considerable support among Democratic-Republicans, the party led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Fearing that another war could cripple America economically, Washington had issued a Proclamation of Neutrality. But Genet remained undeterred. He began outfitting French privateers in American ports. France’s ambitions were vast: It hoped to receive American assistance in wresting Canada from Britain and both Louisiana and Florida from Spain.
In late July 1793, Webster enlisted his colleagues in Hartford’s Common Council to draft a resolution in support of Washington’s stance of neutrality. The letter, which was published in the Courant and sent to the president himself, concluded with a personal touch, “we still retain . . . that just gratitude for your services and respectful attachment to your person.” Washington, whom the Republican press had vilified for standing up to Genet—Philip Freneau of Philadelphia’s National Gazette kept denouncing him as a “king”—was deeply moved. The president replied immediately, “The address . . . affords a new proof of that characteristic love of order and peace, of that virtuous and enlightened zeal for the publick good, which distinguishes the inhabitants of Connecticut.”
On August 8, a few days after finishing this missive to the president, Webster headed to New York City on a business trip. Though no longer the capital—Philadelphia had housed the federal government since 1790—New York, with a population of some thirty-five thousand, was now America’s biggest city. Having saturated the New England market for his textbooks, Webster was hoping to boost his sales in western states such as New York. But he would soon stumble upon an entirely new publishing venture.
SINCE HE WAS LEAVING his family behind, Webster chose to travel by land rather than water. While fares were inexpensive, stagecoaches, which typically transported about a dozen passengers sprinkled across three seats, were still no place for women and children; on the rocky and muddy roads, the ride was rarely smooth. To prevent them from toppling over, the cigar-smoking drivers had to yell every now and then, “Now, gentleman, to the right!” and “Now, gentleman, to the left!”
After stopping off at Durham, New Haven and Norwalk, Webster reached Kingsbridge—located in the northern tip of what is today the Bronx—on Sunday the eleventh. The following morning, his coach arrived in New York’s South Street terminal. As Webster walked up toward his lodgings on Maiden Lane—a few houses from where he had stayed shortly after the war—he became rattled by a deafening din. The steamy streets were packed, and rows upon rows of pedestrians were clamoring.
“Vive La France,” some intoned. “Down with King Washington,” shouted others. Others were singing the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” “Allons enfants de la patrie. . . .” And a chorus continued to cry, “Vive Ge-net, Vive Ge-net, Vive Ge-net.”
As Webster couldn’t help but notice, Genet was now also in Manhattan.
Genet had recently sent Washington an angry letter insisting that the president call for a special session of Congress to consider whether to side with the French. In early August, Washington responded by urging the French government to recall Genet.
On August 7, the ambassador sailed from Philadelphia to New York where he hoped to whip up some fervor for the French cause. To combat Washington’s rebuff, he vowed to “appeal directly to the [American] people.” As Webster would later recall, he was then beginning to wonder whether it was Genet—not Washington—who ruled America.
Upon his arrival in the Battery on the eighth, Genet received a warm welcome. An editorial in a leading Republican newspaper observed, “Americans are ready to mingle their most precious blood with yours.” On Genet’s first day in town, some thousand New Yorkers—including Governor George Clinton—joined him as he strode up Broadway toward Wall Street.
Day after day, the crowds came out for Genet.
As Webster reached his Maiden Lane destination—Mr. Bradley’s Inn—on the afternoon of the twelfth, he breathed a sign of relief. He couldn’t stand shouting mobs—and shouting mobs of pro-French Republicans he liked even less.
After he unpacked his bags, Webster heard more animated voices coming from the direction of the inn’s barroom. As he opened the door, he heard several people yelling, “Americans love you.” Webster then did a double-take. Right in front of him was none other than Edmond Genet himself, surrounded by a circle of admirers. As Webster soon realized, his temporary way station was also Genet’s home for the night.
The thirty-year-old Genet was a handsome man with an oval face and a long, thin nose. Curious about the identity of the new guest, Genet asked Webster the reason for his visit to New York. Webster explained that he was an author who was supervising the printing of New York editions of his textbooks. Genet then invited Webster to join him for dinner that evening.
Sitting around Genet’s reserved table a few hours later were a couple of American businessmen, Timothy Phelps from New Haven and a Mr. Haxhall of Petersburgh, as well as Genet’s extensive retinue, including his personal secretary, Monsieur Pascal, and the military leader Captain Jean-Baptiste Bompard. A week earlier, Bompard’s 44-gun Embuscade had defeated the British frigate Boston in a bloody and closely watched battle off the coast of New Jersey. Though diminutive and elderly, Bompard was a key figure in France’s military offensive in America, which called for taking over British ships in neutral territory.
After dinner, Webster told Genet, “I just heard a report from Boston that the Governor of Massachusetts has taken measures to secure a prize or two which had been sent into that port by a proscribed French privateer.”
Immediately, Monsieur Pascal mumbled, “Monsieur Washington fait guerre à la nation française” [Mr. Washington makes war with France]. Pascal thought that he was just talking to Genet and Bompard, who both nodded their assent, and he was surprised that Webster’s French was good enough to pick up what he was saying.
Webster then asked Genet what he was thinking.
“The Executive of the United States,” Genet responded, “is under the influence of British gold.”
An outraged Webster stated, “It would be impossible to subject the independent freemen of the United States to any foreign power. The Executive Officers, President Washington, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Hamilton are no fools.”
Genet, too, became irate, retorting, “Mr. Jefferson is no fool.”4
The two men then began shouting at each other. Losing his cool, Webster called his adversary “a madman” as well as a host of other epithets. As he later confided to his Yale classmate Oliver Wolcott, then an official in the department of treasury, “I cannot with propriety state all I said myself on that occasion.”
The dinner was over, and the men retired to their rooms for the night. Though that would be Webster’s last personal encounter with Genet, verbal sparring with the French ambassador would soon become his day job.
Over the next two weeks, Webster would meet with several key Federalists, including Chief Justice John Jay, New York senator Rufus King and James Watson, then James Greenleaf’s business partner and later also a New York senator. As Webster learned, Washington hoped to loosen Genet’s grip on the American public by starting a Federalist newspaper in New York City. At a dinner at Watson’s home on August 21—the James Watson House still stands at 7 State Street—Webster was offered the job of editor. He told Watson that he was eager to take this position, but that he lacked start-up capital. Watson soon arranged for a group of a dozen influential Federalists, including Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, to each furnish a hundred and fifty dollars. This five-year loan of eighteen hundred dollars would be interest-free.
The new editor of New York’s first daily newspaper would never work as a lawyer again.
ON AUGUST 30, the day after Webster arrived back home in Hartford, he finalized an agreement with George Bunce of 37 Wall Street to begin printing his newspaper by the end of the year. Four days later, he sold off his law library for $300. Needing every cent he could lay his hands on, he also put a couple of ads in the Courant for his chaise (a two-wheeled carriage), for which he hoped to receive as much as a hundred and thirty dollars. But there were no takers, and it would go with him to New York.
On October 9, Webster heard from Greenleaf, who had completed all the preparations for the move. “I have just returned from the southward,” wrote his brother-in-law from New York on October 7, “my first object since my return has been to look out for a home for you, & I have happily succeeded. Our Dear Becca . . . will be lodged like a little queen. . . . I shall have a good deal of my own furniture put into it.” Missing the joke, Webster assumed that Greenleaf had neglected to mention where the house was located. But Greenleaf’s largesse, he soon learned, would enable his family to live in style in a large rented house at 168 Queen Street.
In a postscript to his letter, Greenleaf asked Webster to insert in Connecticut newspapers an announcement that the city of Washington was looking to hire mechanics and brickmakers “on a large scale.” This remark related to Greenleaf’s own new venture. While traveling down South in September, the speculator clinched the biggest real estate deal in the history of the young country. His charge: to build from scratch America’s new federal city. On September 18, Greenleaf joined a crowd of thousands that witnessed the Masonic ceremony at which George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. During the day-long festivities, which culminated in the consumption of a five-hundred-pound ox, the city’s commissioners offered for sale lots for America’s newest city. But though President Washington himself bought a few to spur interest, most went unsold. The enterprising Greenleaf immediately sprang into action. Five days later, he bought three thousand lots for a pittance—a mere $66.50 each (the going rate had recently been as high as three hundred dollars). As part of the deal, Greenleaf was supposed to build ten brick houses a year and loan the commissioners $2,660 a month. Washington had high expectations. On September 25, the president wrote Tobias Lear, his former secretary (who had taken on the tutoring job declined by Webster a decade earlier), “You will learn from Mr. Greenleaf that he has dipped deeply, in the concerns of the Federal City. I think he has done so on very advantageous terms for himself, and I am pleased with it notwithstanding on public ground; as it may give facility to the operations at that place.” Two months later, Greenleaf formed a partnership with the Philadelphia businessmen Robert Morris (then America’s richest man) and John Nicholson, and managed to wrest away another three thousand lots from the city’s commissioners at a bargain-basement price. Greenleaf now controlled about half of the government’s salable land in the new capital.
On October 31, Webster, his wife and two young daughters, along with the black maid who had lived with them in Hartford, set out for Middletown to wait for the sailing vessel. Though travel by water was more comfortable than by coach, it could take much longer. Due to unfavorable wind conditions, the family didn’t arrive in New York Harbor until November 13. The delay upset eight-month-old Frances, and Webster was frequently called upon to calm the crying baby.
The Websters spent their first two nights at the home of James Watson, now Greenleaf’s former business partner, as the two men had just dissolved their firm. On November 15, the Websters settled into their new quarters on Queen Street (renamed Pearl Street the following year, as New York attempted to shed its remaining British trappings). Four days later, Greenleaf and his friend Charles Lagarenne, a Royalist exile from France, moved into the Webster household, which would soon also include a nurse and manservant. America’s “first capitalist” would be using Webster’s home as a base of operations while he traveled around the country meeting potential investors.
On December 9, 1793, Webster published the first issue of American Minerva, which he subtitled “Patroness of Peace, Commerce and the Liberal Arts.” The four-page paper would come out every day but Sunday, at four in the afternoon. An annual subscription cost six dollars. Webster envisioned that the city’s first daily—Alexander Hamilton’s New York Post would not begin its run until nearly a decade later—could be instrumental in exporting American democracy to the rest of the world. In his editor’s note in that first issue, he wrote, “It is the singular felicity of Americans and a circumstance that distinguishes this country from all others that the means of information are accessible to all descriptions of people.” An informed citizenry, Webster believed, could help Americans tackle all the political and economic challenges that they faced.
Minerva is the Roman name for Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, wit and war. As was common in the early Republic, Webster often looked to ancient Rome for inspiration.
Webster’s Federalist organ quickly made a mark. A few weeks after its launch, Vice President John Adams wrote from Philadelphia to his wife, Abigail, of New York’s new publishing phenomenon, “Mr. Noah Webster who is lately removed from Hartford to that city . . . is said to conduct his gazette with judgment and spirit upon good principles.”
One of Webster’s first tasks was to bring down his old nemesis, Genet, whose fortunes were already tumbling. On December 5, when Washington attacked Genet on the floor of Congress, most congressmen sided with the president. Webster kept up the pressure. In an editorial addressed to Genet a few weeks later, he insisted that the American people were too savvy to fall for his duplicity: “Had you passed a few weeks only in acquiring a slight knowledge of the American yeomanry, you would have discovered real people, as little known to Europeans as the fabled Amazons of antiquity. A people in short who are not found in any other region of the globe, a people who know their rights and will neither suffer you or any other man to invade them.” Genet soon also lost the support of his own countrymen. The following month, the new Jacobin government issued an arrest notice, demanding his return to France. Fearing the guillotine, Genet immediately appealed for political asylum, which Washington approved. In a strange twist, Genet married Cordelia Clinton, the daughter of New York’s governor, in November 1794, and the newlyweds settled on a Long Island farm.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1793, was a normal business day for Webster. He went ahead with the publication of his paper that afternoon. The Christmas edition featured an article on Genet; some death statistics from Philadelphia, recently hit by an outbreak of yellow fever; and a rental ad for the front room of his Queen Street home (which he figured could be used as a hardware store). Webster also stuck in an item praising his Prompter, which claimed that “many householders deem it so useful as to purchase a copy for every adult in their families.” Webster wasn’t celebrating Christmas—then dismissed as “a popish holiday” by Congregationalists; he was thinking about how to define America.
Webster put his musings in a letter to his friend Jedidiah Morse, who was seeking help with a geographical dictionary that would include a “description of all the places in America.” A few years earlier, Webster had contributed a twenty-page review of U.S. history after the Revolution to Morse’s American Geography, a textbook for schoolchildren. (Nearly as successful as Webster’s speller, this frequently reprinted book later earned Morse the sobriquet “Father of American Geography.”) A recent Yale graduate (whose first child, Samuel, the inventor of the telegraph, would later paint a celebrated portrait of Webster), Jedidiah Morse was then serving as pastor in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Webster was eager to pitch in. After all, Morse’s project bore a close resemblance to the elaborate fantasy that he had hatched five years earlier, in which proprietors scattered across the nation would funnel information about America back to him. However, one obstacle remained. “Indeed it appears to me,” Webster had written Morse on September 20, “very difficult to ascertain what I have to do or what will be the portion of labor each of us must bestow. This is my great objection to undertaking such a work with others.”
