Webster was a true American before there was even a USA. At a time when many of the powerful people in the country had still been born in England, he was born in Connecticut in 1758. He was the descendant of a Connecticut governor, a leader of the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth, and came of age during the American Revolution. As his patriotic contribution to the fledgling United States, Webster was adamant that American children should be taught with textbooks written in America instead of books written in England that indoctrinated allegiance to the king.