Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/16

 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��pie and organizations, and ever ready to give assistance to all classes. In his early life in Newmarket Mr. Web- ster attended the Methodist church, there being none of his own faith in town. In this society he was actively engaged as a teacher of a class of young men in the Sabbath school for several years, and he has the pleasure of meeting now and then a member of that class, who has never for- gotten the lessons of life, integrity, and manhood which he there learned, and which at all times and by all peo- ple of good sense are acknowledged to be the great problems of life, tow- ering infinitely above doctrinal and theoretical teachings. It is with this class of men that religious liberty means something more than liberty of my conscience and no others, which is the general spirit of the puritan world.

In politics Mr. Webster is and ever has been a firm but conservative Re- publican. He was never an office- seeker, nor would he accept such, though he could doubtless have called forth as large a vote as any man in his locality.

There is an infinite distance between the men of his class and those who are always hanging about the doors of political head-quarters, with open mouths and empty heads. Such men are far above the vicious impurities of popular public life. They live out the measure of their enjoyment in the more sacred shelters of personality, and grander conceptions of life and its possibilities. They breathe an at- mosphere and enjoy a confidence en- tirely unknown to the popular public man.

Since acting as treasurer Mr. Web- ster has made his native city, Salem, his home, where he now resides, and where he has received many honors and marks of high respect. He was elected to the common council of that city, and chosen its president, the year of his return, and has served upon its board of aldermen two years. He has also been one of the directors

��of the Exchange National Bank of Salem, from 1858 to the present, and its president from i860 to 1878.

His dignified bearing, integrity of character, and congenial manners, have won for him hosts of devoted friends and a position well to be envied in the business and social circles of that grand old city.

His house, on Lafayette street, bears the impress of its owner, in the many- evidences of his culture and taste within and about it. His garden con- tains many rare and beautiful plants and fiowers, which he delights to study and cultivate, and among them he spends much of his time. .A. great lover of every thing that is beautiful, he is particularly fond of these most sug- gestive emblems of pure thoughts and feelings, finding in them sweet compan- ionship in his quiet hours. Surround- ed by every thing that can give material comfort and luxury, he enjoys a rich- ness of life that only such a man cark know — a man whose true and stainless, life holds up before him no pages but those that speak of peace with (iod and man.

But there is never a life without some shadow to overcast its bright skies. One cloud hangs on his, but not a cloud of h's own making, as with most men.

Capt. Webster was married in 1832 to Martha A. Bufiington, a daughter of a Salem sea-captain and ship-owner, who died at Salem, April, 1880. They had but one child — a son, John Buf- fington — born in Newmarket, April 11, 1855. He was a most promising lad,, respected and beloved by all ; but at the age of sixteen he met with a \ery sad end. While away at school he was accidentally killed by the discharge of a gun in the hands of a playmate. This sad event cast a gloom over the community, school, and home, never to be forgotten. A beautiful oil por- trait, of life-size, taken as he was brought in from the fatal scene, hangs, upon the wall of Mr. Webster's pri- vate room, ever to remind him of the- broken link in life's happy chain.

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