Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Daniel Webster

ONE of the causes which, with little doubt, hastened Mr. Webster's death, was the accident which befell him in the early part of May, 1852. He was one day driving from Marshfield to Plymouth with Mr. Lanman, his secretary. As the carriage was ascending a hill, the body of the vehicle fell, and they both were violently thrown out. Mr. Webster was thrown headlong, and involuntarily put out his hand to check the force of the blow; and he fell upon his hand and badly crushed it. He was taken up and carried to a house near by, where he was carefully tended, until he was able to be safely removed to Marshfield. He had not recovered from this injury when he died.

Mr. Webster told me something connected with this accident, which moved him so much that, as he related it, tears came into his eyes. In Kingston, the town in which Mr. Webster was thrown from his carriage, there lived an old gentleman named Joseph Holmes, -- a peculiar, energetic man, of considerable wealth. He was popularly regarded as cold, solitary, and forbidding in disposition; and, although Mr. Webster knew him, he had no liking

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