1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Webster

WEBSTER, a township of Worcester county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the French river, about 16 m. S.S.W. of Worcester. Pop. (1890) 7031; (1900) 8804, of whom 3562 were foreign born; (1910 census), 11,309. Land area (1906), 12·19 sq. m. Webster is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and the Boston & Albany railways, and by interurban electric lines. In the township is Lake Chaubunagungamaug, a beautiful sheet of water about 2 sq. m. in area. The manufacture of textiles and of boots and shoes is the principal industry; the total value of the factory product in 1903 was $5,867,769. Webster was founded by Samuel Slater (1768–1835), who in 1812 built cotton-mills and in 1815–1816 began the manufacture of woollen cloth. The township, named in honour of Daniel Webster, was erected in 1832 from common lands and from parts of Dudley and Oxford townships, which before the cotton-mills were bmlt here were almost uninhabited.

See Holmes Ammidown, Historical Collections (New York, 1874), vol. i . pp. 461-524.