From The Connecticut River Valley in Southern Vermont and New Hampshire: Historical Sketches by Lyman S. Hayes, Tuttle Co., Marble City Press, Rutland, VT., 1929, page 199:
DANIEL WEBSTER AT STRATTON IN 1840 SLEPT AT LUTHER TORREY'S HOUSE
Everything pertaining to the visit of Daniel Webster to this section of the Connecticut river valley July 6 to 8, 1840, when he spoke on Stratton Mountain on the 7th, is of lasting interest to all citizens of this locality. Many stories are told regarding it every year which have little foundation in fact, so when reliable facts are found it is well that they become history.
A letter of much importance in this regard has recently come to light, written July 11, 1907, by E. M. Torrey, an aged man then living in East Dorset, Vt. He was son of Luther Torrey of Stratton at whose house he relates that Mr. Webster spent the night before his noted speech. It disposes of some of the amusing tradiitions which were being circulated about the time the letter was written.
He says:-
"Dear Sir: Sixty-seven years ago, July 7, 1840, the people of Brattleboro were up, out, around and astir uncommonly early. The 'godlike' Daniel Webster had spent the night of the 6th there and the Tippecanoe & Tyler Too club, of which young Mr. Frederick Holbrook, now our venerable ex-governor, was president, and some one hundred others, were to escort him to Stratton, where he. was that day to address an outdoor mass Whig convention on the issues of the campaign. Many errors about this convention have appeared in print.
" • • The site of the 'Webster Grandstand' was a natural amphitheatre in a rough pasture, a little north of a good stage road and three miles east of the top of the Green Mountains and three-fourths of a mile east of White's saw mill, now Grout's, so-called, [200] on Deerfield river. The mill and pasture were owned by Phineas White of Putney. Mr. Webster spoke Saturrday, July 4, 1840, in Barre, Mass., came to Brattleboro Monday, the 6th, to Stratton the 7th and spoke in Belllows Falls the 8th.
"Brattleboro's 'prancing cavalcade of horsemen' didn't prance through her streets in honor of Daniel Webster July 5, 1840, as in print, for that day was Sunday. More likely they were singing 'Auld Lang Syne' and the 'Doxology.' Nobody knows where in Brattleboro Mr. Webster spent the night, July 6, or where he dined at the Stratton convention. Maybe it was at Luther Torrey's, next house east of the grounds where he stopped on his way to address the convention and where he spent the night after the rally. Maybe he dined on the stand he was to speak on-there was plenty of room-and maybe in 'a large tent,' but that tent wasn't 'pitched on the summit of the mountain.' That summit was an unbroken forest then as now and always except by the road and three miles distant. Maybe and more likely he dined with his new-made political friends in the log cabin, 100 feet long from north to south and 50 feet wide, cut in two width-wise by a drive for teams.
"It is in print that Mr. Webster spent the night after the rally in West Wardsboro at the private house of a stranger. Guess not. And that that stranger set fire to his only cigar and 'after puffing at the weed some little time' handed the residue to Mr. Webster, who finished it, 'appreciating the luxury.' He did not. He had such an offer on the steps of the hotel at West Wardsboro, where he stopped on his way to the connvention, but declined with thanks. In 60-1/2 years the story grew to the improbable and nauseating dimensions as above. Mr. Webster was remote from his teens. He had traveled from Brattleboro to the Stratton convention 37 miles, by the winding of streams or over mountain spurs; had been lionized all the way; had addressed a [201] multitude of nineteen or twenty thousand, and had loaned his ears there and everywhere from dawn in Brattleboro to dark in Stratton to 'Hip, hip, hurrahs.' He didn't travel back seven miles to West Wardsboro. In the early darkness after the rally he, with another, entered the southwest corner room of Luther Torrey's near the rally grounds, and the candles were soon put out and he there pillowed his big, weary head in 'tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep' till the coming dawn.
"August 16, 1901, there were assembled, as per a newspaper report, on the Webster convention grounds 1,000 people, mostly from the East. As they passed the site of Luther Torrey's they saw posted 'Where Webster stayed.' Those who posted the notice knew and know the stubborn fact."