replied, in tones of thunder: "On Bunker Hill nothing is impossible."
And the crowd stood back.

At the age of sixteen, he lost his mother by death. This was the
greatest of all the calamities that happened to his father, and it was
not less unfortunate for himself, for it deprived him of the best
influence that ever contributed to mould his career.

In 1829, Fletcher Webster entered Harvard College, and was graduated in
the class of 1833, when he delivered the class oration, which Charles
Sumner, who was present, said "was characterized by judgment, sense, and
great directness and plainness of speech."

While at college, he was distinguished for his fine social qualities,
for his exquisite humor, and peculiar "Yankee wit." When participating
in amateur theatrical exhibitions, he always preferred to play the role
of the typical Yankee,--a character now extinct,--which he played to
perfection.

As the son of Daniel Webster, he might almost be said to have inherited
the profession of the law, and in 1836 he was admitted to the bar. In
the same year he married the wife who survives him--a grandniece of
Captain White, who was so atrociously murdered at Salem, six years
before, and whose murderers might have escaped the gallows but for the
genius and astuteness of Daniel Webster.

The Western States, which are now Central States, were then attracting
millions of the young and the enterprising from New England; and
Fletcher Webster began the practice of the law at Detroit, Michigan. But
at the close of the year 1837, he removed to Peru, Illinois, where he