The father of our subject, who was a lawyer of fine talents, and much respected as a gentleman of high moral and social qualities and much general culture, was graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1803. He was a college-mate of Daniel Webster and Ezekiel the cherished brother, whose name Daniel desired always to have associated with his own. An intimacy between himself and Ezekiel, contracted in college, continued throughout their lives. He lived and practiced law in Sandwich, Epsom, and Tamworth, N. H., at different periods of his life; and, after retiring from business, moved to Andover, Mass., in his native county, for the better education of his younger children, about 1843, where he died in 1859. His wife survived him, and died at Andover in 1872. The subject of this sketch--the oldest of ten children--was educated partly by private tuition at his father's house, partly in Massachusetts, and partly in the classical schools (academies) in the northern part of New Hampshire,--at Wolfeborough, Gilford, Sanbornton (now Tilton), and Gilmanton. He fitted for college with the intention of entering Dartmouth, the _alma mater_ of his father. Failure of health at the critical time defeated that purpose, however, and had almost unlimited control over his movements and destiny for a time much longer than the term of a college course. In the years 1832 and 1833 he lived most of the time in Beverly, Mass., where he taught and studied as health and circumstances permitted. In 1834 he went to Baltimore, attracted by advantages of climate over northern New Hampshire, and the greater facilities afforded there for his temporary occupation of teaching, by which to support himself and render needed pecuniary aid in the education of younger members of the family. There he pursued the study of law in the office of Nathaniel Williams, at that time attorney of the United States for the district of Maryland. He remained in Maryland a little more than two years, when he returned to New England and entered the law school of Harvard University. He remained there until 1839, when he went, in November of 1839, to the city of New York, where he has since resided. There he entered an office as a student, introduced by the late Rufus Choate, of Boston. But he soon commenced business as a practitioner at the bar. In 1846 he married Julia Caroline Livingston, daughter of James Duane Livingston, of the city of New York.