He gathered together a practice worth five or six hundred a year, a very creditable sum for a young country practitioner, and won a reputation which made him known in the State.
In April, 1806, after a noble, toiling, unselfish life of sixty-seven years, Ebenezer Webster died.

Daniel assumed his father's debts, waited until Ezekiel was admitted to the bar, and then, transferring his business to his brother, moved, in the autumn of 1807, to Portsmouth.

This was the principal town of the State, and offered, therefore, the larger field which he felt he needed to give his talents sufficient scope.

Thus the first period in his life closed, and he started out on the extended and distinguished career which lay before him.

These early years had been years of hardship, but they were among the best of his life.