He knew how anxious his father was that he should be near him. He wanted to do all that he could to cheer and comfort the declining years of the noble man who had sacrificed everything for him. And so, in the spring of 1805, he settled in the town of Boscawen, six miles from home, and put up at his office door this sign:
D. WEBSTER, ATTORNEY.
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X.—LAWYER AND CONGRESSMAN.
When Daniel Webster had been in Boscawen nearly two years, his father died. It was then decided that Ezekiel should come and take charge of the home farm, and care for their mother.
Ezekiel had not yet graduated from college, but he had read law and was hoping to be admitted to the bar. He was a man of much natural ability, and many people believed that he would some day become a very famous lawyer.
And so, in the autumn of 1807, Daniel gave up to his brother the law business which he had in Boscawen, and removed to the city of Portsmouth.
He was now twenty-five years old. In Portsmouth he would find plenty of work to do; it would be the very kind of work that he liked. He was now well started on the road towards greatness.
The very next year, he was married to Miss Grace Fletcher, the daughter of a minister in Hopkinton. The happy couple began housekeeping in a small, modest, wooden house, in Portsmouth; and there they lived, very plainly and without pretension, for several years.
Mr. Webster's office was "a common, ordinary-looking room, with less furniture and more books than common. He had a small inner room, opening from the larger, rather an unusual thing."