OUR MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ANCESTOR
Ephraim Webster

One hundred and sixty-two years ago, a wiry young man only five feet four inches tall came to Onondaga, the only white man among the restless Indians of that day, and established a one-man settlement that led eventually to the founding of the City of Syracuse.
    His name was Ephraim Webster and the stories about him are many. They show us the courage that was his heritage and the sense of diplomacy he developed, through an understanding of a [native] people, with whom he had to live to keep the [settler's hold] secure.
    Ephraim Webster was born in New Hampshire in 1762. He was all of fifteen years old when he became a soldier in Washington's Continental Army.
    Just after the Battle of Bennington, the Continental troops were encamped on both sides of Lake Champlain in preparation for an assault on Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Independence. The plans were that this attack be made at the same time as the historic battle with Burgoyne at Saratoga. The night before this operation was to take place, a British flotilla entered the lake and anchored between the American armies. Contact between the forces had to be established quickly and in order to do this someone had to swim the three-mile stretch of chilly waters on that cold October night.
So it happened that young Webster and a single companion, with the important dispatches rolled up in their clothing which was tied above their heads, slid into the cold water on their perilous mission. All night they swam, zigzagging to elude the British sentinels. As they swam silently past a British warship, they heard a man on watch cry, "eleven o'clock and all's well!" Just before day-break, Webster and his companion were fished out of the water, hurried to General Lincoln's headquarters where the dispatches were eagerlv awaited, and in less than an hour the general's troops were on their way to defeat Burgoyne. Thus it was that the man who fostered the earliest settlement here had a hero's part in the victory at Saratoga, which we all know to be one of the decisive battles of the war.
Webster was mustered out of the army in 1781, and, finding no interest in his father's farm, he set out to trade with the Indians. He bought supplies in Schenectady and traded them at Oriskany, where he was welcomed by the Oneida Indians. He learned the language and the customs of the Iroquois and, more important, how to get along with them. For more than two years, he made Oriskany his base, but came to Onondaga in 1784 to begin a brisk trade in furs with the Onondagas. He did not have time to build his camp before he was asked by General Schuyler to perform a special mission. The British had been reported to have roused the western Indians of Ohio to make a series of attacks on the white settlements of this territory. Webster set out with a band of Mohawks and Onondagas to avert these designs. After many months of successful haranguing with the hostile tribes of the immediate west, he returned in 1786 and set up what became known as Webster's landing on the west bank of Onondaga Creek, near the inlet to the lake. He always called this wilderness home his camp.
The "camp" was sixty-five feet long and twenty feet wide with hickory beams and oak joints mortised fast and all shingled in clear pine. Here he lived for many years, acting as counselor and dispute settler for the Indians and white settlers. He sometimes had to settle some of his own disputes, such as the time when he wandered far afield and stumbled onto a strange set of traps. While he was looking them over, a band of equally strange lndians grabbed him, took him to their chief and excitedly pronounced him a thief.
    Webster tried to establish his identity as a friend, but the evidence was a little too stiff for him to overcome. He tried wheedling, and he tried bribing, and even threatening, to no avail. The chief decreed that he must die. Webster thought a minute and as a last request asked for a cup of cold water. When it was brought he raised the cup in salute and declared that of all the Indians he had ever run into these were the first ones that were smart enough to catch him. He elaborated further and declared that they were the bravest, mightiest group of stalwart braves that it had ever been his pleasure to meet and that his downright admiration for those Onondagas as hunters was far beyond his poor words to express. They not only freed this seasoned diplomat, but also made him a member of the tribe. Some years later they gave him a square mile of their land in Onondaga Valley.
   Webster's fame among the Indians became so well established that he was often sent on dangerous and confidential missions by the government. Such an assignment became his lot during the fighting between the British, Indian, and American troops from 1788 to l794. He would loll around the British fort at Oswego in the disguise of an Onondaga Indian and no amount of liquor ladled out by the suspicious officers of the fort could get a word from him except in the native language of the Onondagas.
   He also served during the War of 1812, leading volunteer troops as a captain of militia.
    Webster is said to have married an Indian [maiden] when he first came into this country to please his Indian allies. His grandson, Chief Tahtoho, ruled th Onondagas until he was 71, and several Indian descendants are still living on the Onondaga reservation today.
    When the white settlers came into this country, however, he longed for a white woman to be his wife, and later married the beautiful Hannah Danks. His descendants, from [both marriages], became useful and in many cases, distinguished citizens.
    Such was the adventurous career of Syracuse's first trader, merchant, and hero who died as he had lived . . . in the year 1824 among the Indians at Tonawanda, where he had gone to trade.
    It is right that we [to] give Ephraim Webster great credit for his courage in tackling the dangers of the wilderness, for his unwavering diplomacy among the Indians, and for heroic service to his country in time of war. [Many] Syracusans. . . thank Webster for fathering, nurturing, and guarding the little settlement that grew into the thriving community [they] call home.

(Excerpted from The Road to Yesterday, a series of stories about the people and events that helped make Syracuse, New York, a great city. By Byron F. Fellows, Jr. And William F. Roseboom. July, 1948.)


"Beginning the Salt Industry-1783"
George Kasson Knapp & Onondaga Savings Bank, 1976
Webster sits in the left background, while Comfort Tyler chops wood and Asa Danforth carries brine from a spring.
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