Ephraim Webster

Ephraim Webster (June 30, 1762 - October 16, 1824) was the first Euro-American settler in Central New York when he arrived in 1786 to an area later named Syracuse.

His mother died when he was a teenager and his father, son of Samuel Webster and Mary Kimball, remarried on January 8, 1778, in Chester, New Hampshire, to Sarah Colby Wells, a widow.

During his time in service, he was called on by the commanders of Fort Ticonderoga in New York to volunteer with another soldier to swim Lake Champlain and carry dispatches to General Lincoln near Mount Independence, Vermont.

"[6] Although he could make a living off of city jobs, Webster a wanted to be a frontiersman and went to Albany, New York, before heading out into the wilderness where he met an Indian hunting party.

I can't even imagine his fear when one Indian held his arms and the other took the hatchet and told him that he was going to sing his 'death song' and kill him.

He went with Gain to his home on West Canada Creek and spent three months there without speaking a word of English during the entire time.

[10] Webster learned to speak or write a total of six Indian languages, and served as an interpreter for a salary of two dollars a day.

According to documents at the Onondaga Historical Association from reports by other pioneers such as Calvin Jackson, interviewed in 1837, who relayed that in 1793 he saw Webster "dressed in an Indian costume and painted (with) a jewel in his nose and ears.

[1] According to Joel Cornish, who served on a trial in a property dispute filed by Harry Webster in 1837, the woman balked at a divorce, but was finally forced to leave.

Several historical accounts maintain Onondaga chiefs accepted divorce in instances where wives were accused of drunken behavior.

[7] He married a young white woman named Hannah Danks on November 19, 1795, just months after he received his square mile of land.

[1] The last parcel was purchased by Joseph Forman, a merchant from Troy, New York, who had settled in Onondaga Hollow a few years earlier, for $6,250 on October 18, 1805.

[4] The original family home Webster built stood for many years at Valley Drive in Syracuse until it was destroyed by fire in the late 1890s.

[10] Even after he rejoined white society, he was on good terms with the Onondagas, and was appointed as the state's agent to live with the tribe in 1811.

[1] He offered Onondaga troops to President James Madison during the War of 1812, and led the tribe in engagements against the British on two separate occasions.

In the treaty dated July 28, 1795,[12] Onondagas sold 4,000 acres (16,000,000 m2) to the State of New York for $1,000 and annual payments of $430, along with 50 bushels of salt.

[1] The treaty had a clause that required the Onondagas to give Webster 300 acres (1,200,000 m2) of their diminishing territory, which was not viewed favorably by the tribal leaders.

His will left all his possessions, including $2,000 worth of personal property, a large fortune for that time,[10] to his second wife, Hannah and to their children despite the Onondagas belief that the land should naturally return to them.