Noah Webster was born on October 16, 1758, in the West Divisionof Hartford. Noah's was an average colonial family. His fatherfarmed and worked as a weaver. His mother worked at home. Noahand his two brothers, Charles and Abraham, helped their fatherwith the farm work. Noah's sisters, Mercy and Jerusha, workedwith their mother to keep house and to make food and clothingfor the family.Few people went to college, but Noah loved to learn so hisparents let him go to Yale, Connecticut's only college. He leftfor New Haven in 1774, when he was 16. Noah's years at Yalecoincided with the Revolutionary War. Because New Haven had foodshortages during this time, many of Noah's classes were held inGlastonbury.Noah graduated in 1778. He wanted to study law, but his parentscould not afford to give him more money for school. So, in orderto earn a living, Noah taught school in Glastonbury, Hartfordand West Hartford. Later he studied law.Noah did not like American schools. Sometimes 70 children of allages were crammed into one-room schoolhouses with no desks, poorbooks, and untrained teachers. Their books came from England.Noah thought that Americans should learn from American books, soin 1783, Noah wrote his own textbook: A Grammatical Institute ofthe English Language. Most people called it the "Blue-backedSpeller" because of its blue cover.For 100 years, Noah's book taught children how to read, spell,and pronounce words. It was the most popular American book ofits time. Ben Franklin used Noah's book to teach hisgranddaughter to read.In 1789, Noah married Rebecca Greenleaf. They had eightchildren. Noah carried raisins and candies in his pockets forthe children to enjoy. The Websters lived in New Haven, thenmoved to Amherst, MA. There, Noah helped to start AmherstCollege. Later the family moved back to New Haven.When Noah was 43, he started writing the first Americandictionary. He did this because Americans in different parts ofthe country spelled, pronounced and used words differently. Hethought that all Americans should speak the same way. He alsothought that Americans should not speak and spell just like theEnglish.Noah used American spellings like "color" instead of the English"colour" and "music" instead " of "musick". He also addedAmerican words that weren't in English dictionaries like "skunk"and "squash". It took him over 27 years to write his book. Whenfinished in 1828, at the age of 70, Noah's dictionary had 70,000words in it.Noah did many things in his life. He worked for copyright laws,wrote textbooks, Americanized the English language, and editedmagazines. When Noah Webster died in 1843 he was considered anAmerican hero.