When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Ebenezer Webster was operating a mill and farming a stony tract of land in Salisbury, New Hampshire. He shared a log cabin with his four children and second wife, Abigail Eastman Webster. Ebenezer was a patriotic man who had served with "Roger's Rangers" in the French and Indian Wars. He was active in Salisbury town affairs, and when the call came for soldiers to fight the British, he organized and captained a company of local volunteers.

Captain Webster came home each winter during the war, but he departed again when the fighting resumed again in the spring. His family was growing. Abigail gave birth to a daughter in 1779 and a son in 1780. During this period Ebenezer built a two-room frame house to replace the crowded log cabin.

It was in this new home that Abigail's fourth child, Daniel, was born on January 18, 1782. Thick snow probably blanketed the little house on that winter day, adding to the farm's isolation. Ebenezer was still away, serving his final days in General Washington's army. Abigail must have been glad to have her older children around her to help with the birth, fetching buckets of water from the well and keeping a good fire going in the large fireplace.

Around 1785 Ebenezer sold his farm and mill and moved the family to more fertile land near the Merrimack River. The farm's new owner, Captain Stephen Sawyer, built a large square farmhouse on the site. He also moved the Webster's small house across the road and attached it to his new home to form a shed, or ell.

The property passed through the hands of several owners until Judge George Nesmith gave it to Daniel Webster in 1851. After his death it was sold again, and finally in 1910 it was acquired by the Webster Birthplace Association. The original cellar hole was located and cleared, and the frame house moved back to its original foundation. In 1917 the restored house and 155 of the farm's original acres were deeded to the State of New Hampshire.